Fraser Bullock, who is in charge of the bid whose goal is to bring the Winter Olympics back to Salt Lake City, Utah, seems hopeful of achieving that. “We will organize the Olympics. The question is when,” he said in a television interview last week.
Will it be in 2030, from the first opening available on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) calendar? Or will the IOC make a double award, naming at the same time the city which will organize the 2034 Winter Olympics?
After having obtained two solid candidatures for obtaining the Summer Olympics four and a half years ago, the IOC chose Paris for those of 2024 and Los Angeles for those of 2028.
However, the IOC refuses to come forward for the moment. An announcement should be made at the beginning of next year, and several Salt Lake City media even specify that the decision will be announced in May 2023. “I have my fingers crossed for obtaining the 2030 Olympics, but whatever when the time is right, we’ll be ready,” Bullock told the Deseret News.
Bullock was number two on the organizing committee for the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002, behind Mitt Romney.
Inspection visits
Under the new bidding process, the IOC appears to want to analyze a maximum of four Candidate Cities. Three of them have already hosted Winter Olympics before: Sapporo (1972), Salt Lake City (2002) and Vancouver (2010). Barcelona would also have shown interest, after having organized the 1992 Summer Olympics and having considered a joint candidacy with the regions of the Pyrenees.
The IOC’s “technical team” visited Salt Lake City last week and inspected its facilities. She will do the same this week in Vancouver. A similar visit to Spain, however, would have been postponed.