U.S. Olympic and Paralympic officials said Thursday that new baseball and hockey stadiums are not part of Utah's plans to host the Winter Olympics.
“Bids and awards are not about that,” USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland told reporters on a media call after a two-day closed board meeting that included a discussion of the Salt Lake City initiative. I'm not dependent on it,” he said. The 2034 Winter Games will be held.
A multibillion-dollar sports facility backed by the Utah Legislature in hopes of bringing Major League Baseball and National Hockey League teams to Salt Lake City was submitted to the International Olympic Committee in February. It is not included in the detailed plans for the 2034 Games. Committee.
But there are enough questions about how the stadium and arena relate to the Salt Lake City-Utah Games Bid Committee that IOC officials announced earlier this week that they would sell any potential investment in the facility. I made it clear that it shouldn't be done. Taxpayers needed for Salt Lake City to host the Winter Olympics again.
Hirshland echoed that message.
“The submission to the IOC and the consideration of these Olympics is not dependent on such conversations in any way,” she said. “We are in an incredibly fortunate position in Salt Lake and Utah with amazing existing venues that have been maintained and invested in since the 2002 Olympics.”
But, like the IOC, Hirshland did not prevent the facility from being used for the Olympics ten years later.
“If new buildings are built between now and 2034, I think the Salt Lake Utah team will consider whether they should be included in the Olympics or not,” she said. This could include hosting nightly medal ceremonies and large-scale air snowboarding competitions, which have been added since 2002, at a baseball stadium planned near Utah Fair Park.
Late last year, the IOC named Salt Lake City as a “preferred host” for the 2034 Games under a new, informal bidding process. In April, members of the IOC's Future Hosts Committee will tour the venue ahead of a report to the Swiss-based organization's leadership in June.
The final vote on the site for the 2034 Winter Games is scheduled to take place in Paris on July 24, which is celebrated as Utah Pioneer Day. At the same meeting, ahead of the start of the 2024 Summer Olympics, full member states will also vote on France's candidacy for the French Alps to host the 2030 Games.
Hirshland and USOPC Chairman Gene Sykes will be in Utah for an IOC visit April 9-13. Sykes said he and Hirshland have been in touch with future IOC members of the host committee for “more than a year, to be honest, in preparation for exactly this type of interaction.”
Utah's bid team has done a great job of preparing for the 2034 Games with all the work that needs to be done to put them in a very good position to explain the logic of Salt Lake City as host. “I did,” he said. “There is no host country more attractive to the IOC than Salt Lake City.”
“The great sports culture within Salt Lake and throughout the state of Utah is very impressive,” Sykes said.
“The IOC's expectations are based on what we've learned so far about the team in Salt Lake City and the atmosphere in Utah: a very collaborative culture and a place where the excitement of the Olympics and Paralympics comes together,” he said. We need to make sure that.” The game makes you feel very at home. ”
