It took them long enough, but finally enough people had died, or forgotten or forgiven — nah, probably not forgiven — that the International Olympic Committee came to its senses and awarded another Olympic Winter Games to Salt Lake City and environs.
The statute of limitations on holding a grudge, it would seem, is 26 years.
That’s how long it’s been since Marc Hodler of Switzerland, a longstanding IOC delegate with a sterling reputation, cleared his throat in the late fall of 1998 and said the kindnesses certain IOC delegates were receiving from Salt Lake’s Olympic bidders weren’t gifts, but bribes.
Unwittingly or not, Hodler exposed to the bright light of day a climate of corruption that had long been an unseen, unspoken part of the Olympic charter, particularly among its delegates from poorer countries. In the bidding for the 2002 Winter Games that wound up going to Salt Lake, more than a few delegates had their hands out, and the Salt Lake bidders were so bad at subtly giving stuff away — openly enrolling the children of delegates at the University of Utah tuition-free, for one awkward example — that for the first time, the IOC takers were exposed red-handed with their loot.
(No sense in dredging up the sordid past, but my candidate for greediest of the greedy was General Zein El-Abdin Mohamed Ahmed Abdel Gadir of Sudan, who asked for money for a nonexistent daughter. In the IOC’s own words, the general was expelled because he “requested direct payments from one of the (Salt Lake) consultants to Zema Abdel Gadir, who was said to be his daughter. However, it was discovered that General Abdel Gadir has no daughter.”)
None of this was judged illegal, but seen in the light of day it was embarrassing enough that the IOC was forced to clean up its house. Before the bloodletting ended, four delegates had resigned before they could be expelled, six were expelled and 10 more were reprimanded. That amounted to almost a fifth of the membership in the doghouse.
Going forward, it also meant an overhaul of the bidding procedure, eliminating for the most part visits by the general membership to hopeful cities, yet another perk lost — and no doubt helps explain why it took awhile for Salt Lake to become popular enough to get picked for Games No. 2.
When the IOC voted 83-6 last week in Paris to award the 2034 Winter Olympics to Salt Lake City-Utah, just 10 delegates remained from those who voted for Salt Lake 2002.
It seems all grudges have either disappeared, or been outvoted.
The good news for the IOC is that no way is Salt Lake City ever going to embarrass the organization as a place to stage the Games. Hosting the Olympics a second time gives Salt Lake the chance to emphasize again not just that it checks all the important boxes required of a host city, but why it should be a shoo-in, should the IOC decide on a rotation of select cities, as a permanent host.
There may be no better place for a Winter Olympics on planet Earth.
I speak with some experience on the topic, having covered five Winter Olympics: two of them in smaller towns, Albertville, France, in 1992 and Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994, and two in bigger cities, Calgary, Canada, in 1988 and Torino, Italy, in 2006. Along with Salt Lake 2002.
Lillehammer, no offense, was the best of them. Picture postcard village of 23,000, train station in the middle of town, countryside clothed in white snow and green forests. A Hollywood sound stage couldn’t have made it more perfect. You half expected to run into Sonja Henie. And the fans. Knowledgeable, appreciative, a country of winter sports junkies no one had to explain the events to (as the immortal Dan Jenkins wrote, “Nordic skiing is how Norwegians go to the 7-Eleven.”)
But for all that, Lillehammer wasn’t big enough. Traveling to venues in other villages was a hassle when it wasn’t an outright nightmare. There were no rooms left in the inns. And that was 30 years ago. No small town could handle the size of today’s Games (eight years after Lillehammer, Salt Lake 2002 had 17 more events and nearly 700 more athletes; the numbers have only kept growing since then).
Albertville, France, was even smaller than Lillehammer, but wasn’t as picturesque.
Calgary and Torino were big cities, but too far from the mountains.
Then there’s Salt Lake City.
Let us count the ways: good winter climate … cold enough to make snow if need be … truly magnificent nearby mountains … reasonable budget … lots of people who will work for free (i.e., volunteers) … all venues from last time in good working order … enough beds … Park City looks a bit like Lillehammer, if you squint … made money last time … large roads … free country … lots of knowledgeable winter sports fans … no athlete is ever more than an hour away from the downtown medals ceremony … and so forth.
Whether you want the attention and congestion, and controversy, that goes with the Olympics (personally I’m ambivalent about having them again), touting Salt Lake City-Utah as a Winter Olympics host is like touting Yellowstone as a good place to see geysers.
All it took was bygones to be bygones.
