Paris — Winter Olympic I am officially returning to the United States.
More specifically, the Olympics are coming back to Utah.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) members on Wednesday officially awarded Salt Lake City the 2034 Winter Olympics, making Utah’s capital city an Olympic site again more than 30 years after hosting the 2002 Games. This will mark the fifth time the United States will host the Winter Olympics.
“We’re ready. Everything is in place,” Salt Lake City bid leader Fraser Brock said during a presentation at the IOC Session on Wednesday. “But more than our physical assets, we rely on our people. As great as our venues are, our people are even greater.”
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Wednesday’s vote was effectively a confirmation vote — Salt Lake City had already been selected by the IOC as the best choice to host the 2034 Olympics — but it also sparked an unexpected controversy. In a bizarre scene, IOC members used the opportunity to blast the United States’ recent political actions surrounding the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the doping scandal involving 23 Chinese swimmers.
“It is disappointing for you and for us that this issue has emerged only now,” IOC president Thomas Bach told the bid committee in Salt Lake City.
But in the end, last-minute concerns weren’t enough to thwart Wednesday’s vote, which passed by a margin of 83 to 6. The IOC vote coincided with Pioneer Day, a state holiday, sparking early morning celebrations across Utah.
IOC members also approved the French Alps as the host city for the 2030 Winter Olympics on the same day.
IOC expresses concern over US anti-doping stance
An hour before IOC members were due to select Salt Lake City to host the Winter Olympics, they took an unusual detour to express concern about how a doping scandal involving Chinese swimmers had been handled in the United States.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency and its CEO Travis Tygart have sharply criticized WADA’s handling of the case of Chinese swimmers, in which 23 athletes tested positive for banned heart drugs ahead of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. WADA accepted the findings of a Chinese government investigation that the positive tests were due to contamination at a hotel and did not make the test results public at the time.
USADA’s criticism led to congressional hearings on the issue and reports of a U.S. law enforcement investigation, likely conducted under the Rodchenkov Act, which allows U.S. authorities to pursue criminal charges in doping cases affecting American athletes.
The Rodchenkov rule in particular appeared to anger IOC members ahead of Wednesday’s vote. John Coates, a top aide to Bach, said the IOC had even amended Salt Lake City’s host-city contract to address the issue. Coates said the IOC could terminate the host-city contract “if (WADA’s) ultimate authority in anti-doping is not sufficiently respected.”
Gene Sykes, president of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, responded to the committee members’ concerns by praising WADA and reiterating the United States’ commitment to clean sport.
“We of course accept the obligations and responsibilities that come with the revised Olympic Hosting Contract,” Sykes said, “so from our perspective, we take your comments very seriously and we are committed to being your partner and working with you to support this incredibly important organisation.”
Salt Lake City’s journey to host the 2034 Olympics
The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee has backed Salt Lake City as a bidder since 2018, and it’s been clear for several years that the IOC would one day award another form of Olympic Games to Utah.
For a while, the only real question was whether Salt Lake would host the Winter Olympics in 2030 or 2034.
Bid leaders have said either option is fine, but they prefer to host the games in 2034, taking advantage of the buffer time afforded by the United States hosting the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
The city is uniquely positioned to host the games in part because it has meticulously maintained the venues used in 2002 through the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit organization created after the end of those games. Olympic officials also praise Salt Lake City’s stable winter weather. As climate change continues to have an impact, fewer cities are expecting ideal weather to host the Winter Olympics on the usual schedule in early-to-mid-February.
What is the proposed location for Salt Lake 2034?
The Salt Lake City Olympics will utilize 12 existing venues, but only four of those will require additional permanent renovations by 2034. The report was released in June by the IOC’s Future Hosts Commission.The only temporary venue that will require construction is for snowboarding’s Big Air event.
Among the notable events, the University of Utah campus will be used as the athletes’ village during the Olympics, and the Delta Center, home of the NBA’s Utah Jazz, will be the venue for figure skating, one of the highlights of the Winter Olympics. Skiing events will be held at Snowbasin Resort, about 35 minutes northeast of downtown Salt Lake City, and snowboarding events will be held in Park City, Utah.
How much will the Salt Lake City Olympics cost?
Karl Stoss, chairman of the committee for future Winter Olympics hosts, praised Salt Lake City’s Olympic plan as “very compact” and said it would not require any capital investment.
The official budget for the Salt Lake City Olympics is about $4 billion, and organizers claim it will be 100% privately funded from ticket sales, domestic sponsors, and IOC contributions. But the Olympics often exceed initial estimates and tend to put additional strain on public works and facilities in host cities, which are sometimes underestimated in the budget.
What other bids has the US won?
For decades, the IOC welcomed multiple bids to host a single Olympic Games, effectively putting them up for a vote. But that’s no longer the case: The IOC’s hosting process is much murkier, with potential host countries moving through several loose “dialogue” stages, so that by the time the vote comes up, as it did in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, the decision is essentially already made.
This means it’s unclear who won out over Salt Lake City, or if it even won at all. The other candidates were the French Alps, Sweden, and Switzerland, with Canada and Japan also expressing some interest. In the end, the IOC chose the French Alps and Salt Lake City, and it seems they’ve decided on who will host the games and when.
Where will the next Olympics be held?
simply Overview of future Olympic host countries.
- 2026: Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy
- 2028: Los Angeles Summer Olympics
- 2030: Winter Olympics in the French Alps
- 2032: Brisbane Summer Olympics, Australia
- 2034: Salt Lake City Winter Olympics
Contact Tom Schad at [email protected] or on social media. Tom Shad.
