By Feb. 8, 2003, the one-year anniversary of the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics, there was already chatter about when a second Games could be staged in the state.
Even as Park City was marking the anniversary of the past Winter Olympics with a celebration at the Town Lift Plaza, some were considering the possibility of a future Games. The day was full of memories and stories from the Games the year before as Parkites proudly recalled the successes of the athletes and the community. A second Winter Olympics was of interest, but there was a realization the wait could be decades.
The prospects of hosting a second Winter Olympics in the state have been consistently discussed and debated since the cauldron was extinguished in 2002, but Salt Lake City and the wider Olympic region this week are on the precipice of reaching an important step in the efforts to host a second Games.
And by the end of the workweek, possibly sometime on Wednesday, Salt Lake City could advance to another phase of the talks with the International Olympic Committee about a selection for the Games of 2030 or those of four years later. The IOC could award both of the events in mid-2024, just before the opening of the Summer Olympics in Paris.
The Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, which is the group seeking the Olympics, hopes the IOC invites Salt Lake City into a targeted dialogue, a phase in the selection process that involves a detailed review of the plans to stage a Games.
The IOC does not award an Olympics at that point of the process, but a city that advances to a targeted dialogue is considered to be a leading contender for a later awarding of a Games. The Games of 2034 appear more likely since an organizing committee in Salt Lake City would not overlap with the fundraising for the Summer Olympics of 2028 in Los Angeles. There is competition from elsewhere for a Games, including from Switzerland, but the Salt Lake City bid has been seen for some time as especially well organized.
The 21-plus years between the end of the Games in 2002 and the IOC meetings this week involved extensive preparation at various levels across the region for a second Games. The competition venues remained in heavy use with the possibility of another Games, infrastructure was upgraded regardless of the Olympic efforts and government institutions like the Marsac Building participated in years of meetings about a bid.
“Would I do it again for Park City’s sake? You bet,” the late Park City Councilor Candy Erickson said at the one-year anniversary in 2003. “To do it again in 20 years, we wouldn’t have to re-invent the wheel.”
She added: “Within days of the Olympics ending, I had so many people coming up and saying ‘That was fun. When can we do it again?'”
The Olympic-related work in the intervening years was seen as important at City Hall, but issues locally and globally overshadowed the efforts. The Treasure development dispute, a construction boom after the Games of 2002, the Great Recession, the lawsuit that led to the sale of Park City Mountain and the coronavirus pandemic all shaped post-Olympic Park City even as the desire for a second Games continued in the background.
Should a targeted dialogue launch and a Games be awarded in the summer, the Olympic work would need to be undertaken alongside any other issues that arise in addition to the ongoing municipal tasks regarding topics like housing, traffic and sustainability.
There were bursts of excitement about a future Olympics occasionally during the 10 years after 2002, particularly in the year of a Winter Olympics, but the efforts seemed to become more formalized at the 10-year anniversary of the Games in Salt Lake City, in 2012. Boosters by then could realistically begin talking about another Games in the next decade.
Perhaps the Games of 2022 were a possibility, some said at the time, before they went to Beijing. There was then talk of the 2026 event, eventually awarded to Milan and Cortina in Italy, before 2030 or 2034 become more likely.
Work since 2012 has included:
- The 2012 appointment of people with significant ties to Park City or the city’s Olympic legacy to a committee that was seated to consider whether the state should bid for the Games of 2022 or 2026. One of the appointees, Colin Hilton, was a key staffer in the organizing committee that put on the Games of 2002 and went on to work at City Hall afterward.
- The 2012 tapping of Mayor Dana Williams and Andy Beerman, who was then a member of the Park City Council, to represent City Hall in the discussions about a Winter Olympic bid. Williams later retired from the mayor’s office after three terms while Beerman continued to represent City Hall in the Olympic discussions through his own mayoral administration.
- The 2017 naming of Beerman, a City Councilor at the time who was amid an ultimately successful mayoral campaign, to an Olympic exploratory committee. The appointment gave the Park City government a role in a potential bid at the outset. Beerman at the time said Park City had “been ready to host the Olympics since the day they left.”
- The 2018 releasing by an Olympic exploratory committee of a report that included a conceptual map of a future Games. The concept showed Park City having an outsized role in an Olympics. Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and the Utah Olympic Park were each identified as key competition venues, as was the case in 2002.
- The 2018 selection of Salt Lake City by the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee as the nation’s bid city for a future Winter Olympics. The selection by the national body was required before Salt Lake City could enter the international competition to host a Games. The 2030 event seemed possible at the time.
The Park City area would be crucial to another Games. The three competition venues themselves would keep Park City and surrounding Summit County busy throughout the Games, and the area would also be critical to the transportation, security and celebration planning. Main Street would be one of the prime celebration zones with the likelihood of there being temporary installations along the shopping, dining and entertainment strip from Olympic sponsors adding to the atmosphere.