Olympics: Pride in 2002 legacy is focal to bringing Games back to Utah

As temperatures soared exterior on a current weekday afternoon, younger determine skaters had been practising their jumps on the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns. On an adjoining rink, a bunch of grownup curlers furiously swept a path for a curling stone.

The 2002 Winter Video games speedskating monitor, already transformed for the season from ice to a padded floor for runners, wasn’t as busy, however the brand new leaders of the group behind bringing another Olympics to Utah, the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, centered as an alternative on the athletes who had been attempting to excellent their expertise.

It’s one thing the committee’s chairwoman, Catherine Raney Norman, understands nicely as a speedskater who competed in 4 Olympics, together with in 2002. Steve Starks, vice chairman and Olympic adviser to Gov. Spencer Cox, will get it, too, as CEO of the Larry H. Miller Group of Firms and a former Utah Jazz president.

A determine skater earlier than she switched to speedskating whereas rising up in Wisconsin, Raney Norman famous a number of the coaching strategies in use, and Starks supplied fist-bumps and phrases of encouragement to the younger skaters as they left the ice.

When Salt Lake Metropolis and Utah first hosted the Olympics practically 20 years in the past, Raney Norman, 41, had already competed as an adolescent for Crew USA on the 1998 Winter Video games in Nagano, Japan. Starks, who’s a yr older, was scholar physique president at Weber State College.

Each see these Winter Video games as a significant contributor to the state, one thing they hope to repeat many times by internet hosting not simply in both 2030 or 2034, however each 20 years or so after that, whereas persevering with to make use of venues just like the speedskating oval between Olympics for the group in addition to for athlete coaching and competitors.

“The pleasure that we really feel with regard to having hosted the Video games continues to be seen each single day, proper? These venues are alive. They’re lively. They’re busy. They’ve impacted our communities. And that spirit simply continues to develop,” Raney Norman stated. “It’s felt right here each single day, and that’s one thing I’m excited to amplify.”

Supplied by WSJUSA, Supplied by WSJUSA

Positioning to ‘recurrently host the Video games’

That legacy from 2002 helped Salt Lake Metropolis safe the assist of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee in December 2018 over Denver as the nation’s choice to bid for a future Winter Games. Whether or not that’s for 2030 or 2034 might not be determined, nonetheless, till someday after the Winter Video games in Beijing that start subsequent February.

Whereas ready for a option to be made by the nationwide committee, Utah is already taking part within the Worldwide Olympic Committee’s new, much less formal bidding course of that enables for the choice of a number metropolis every time an acceptable candidate emerges relatively than the normal timetable of seven years prematurely.

That may imply a number of Olympics being awarded on the similar time, as occurred practically 4 years in the past when the 2024 Summer season Video games went to Paris and the 2028 Summer season Video games to Los Angeles. Or a decide can come shortly, as with Brisbane, Australia, now being really useful to host the 2032 Summer season Video games.

Not less than three different cities are additionally vying for a Winter Video games: Sapporo, Japan; Vancouver, Canada; and Barcelona, Spain. All have additionally hosted an Olympics earlier than, Sapporo in 1972; Vancouver in 2010; and Barcelona, which is bidding with communities within the close by Pyrenees, the 1992 Summer season Video games.

Utah’s bidders are placing collectively plans to host both 2030 or 2034, however they’re not stopping there.

“We need to be ready for each choices and to have the ability to do it efficiently,” Starks stated. “We additionally need to take the long-term view, that whether or not it’s 2030 or 2034, what we might actually like to see is 2050, 2070, that we’re positioned as a spot that may recurrently host the Video games. That’s thrilling, too.”

Nobody related to the Utah bid is stating a choice for once they’d prefer to see the Video games return, however Raney Norman likes to joke that her son will nonetheless be too younger to compete in 2030. In March, she launched 4-year-old River Huck Norman to skating on the oval.

“My little man saved yelling, ‘Mama, let’s go quicker.’ After all, he can’t stand. He can’t stand so I’m holding him and my arms hadn’t needed to work out this tough ceaselessly. However he made his first journey” across the ice, Raney Norman stated, one thing she didn’t do till she was a number of years older than him.

The shift to a younger generation of leaders — Raney Norman is taking on from Cindy Crane, a retired Rocky Mountain Energy president and CEO who will serve on a brand new govt committee together with the previous vice chairmen — is meant to showcase the objective of turning into a perpetual host.

Upcoming Olympics pose challenges

Koji Sasahara, AP

For now, the Olympic world’s consideration is on Tokyo, the place what was purported to be the 2020 Summer season Video games is ready to begin July 23 after being postponed a yr attributable to COVID-19. With the virus nonetheless sweeping by way of Japan, many restrictions are in place for the upcoming occasion, together with allowing solely home spectators.

Meaning Utah’s bid staff gained’t be capable to mingle with Olympic decision-makers in Japan or see firsthand how Video games organizers face the issues posed by the pandemic that in some methods parallel what Salt Lake handled as host of the primary main worldwide occasion following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults in opposition to the USA.

Tokyo is “going to be totally different clearly than every other Video games,” Raney Norman stated. “After all, we’re hoping all the pieces occurs easily and safely and all of that, however I believe Tokyo goes to be an instance of type of a kind of distinctive, iconic moments, like what we had here in ’02.”

The facility of the world coming collectively after the lethal assaults is what stands out concerning the Salt Lake Metropolis Video games, each leaders stated, not the worldwide scandal over the money, presents and scholarships supplied to IOC members and their households throughout the bid for 2002, which helped result in the brand new course of for choosing host cities.

“I don’t hear so much concerning the scandal in any respect,” Starks stated. He stated he believes “folks keep in mind the Olympics in Utah extremely favorably as a result of it was arguably probably the most profitable Video games ever held. I believe that’s what folks consider once they consider 2002.”

Tokyo represents one other welcome alternative to give attention to athletic competitors in troubled occasions, Starks stated, simply as Salt Lake Metropolis did after 9/11 and the Nationwide Basketball Affiliation did by creating an isolation zone for gamers to complete out the season final yr after suspending play at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak.

“I believe folks will get pleasure from watching the world come collectively once more and having sport unite us. Sports activities has performed a extremely large position all through the pandemic,” he stated, including the Tokyo Olympics “might be a reminder that we’re all excited to get again collectively in particular person.”

The subsequent Olympics after Tokyo is now simply months away, with the 2022 Beijing Winter Video games on schedule to start subsequent February. However there’s already controversy over China’s human rights file, resulting in calls for a diplomatic and economic boycott from Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, the previous head of the 2002 Winter Video games, and others.

In Beijing, Raney Norman stated, the hope is that Crew USA members who practice in Utah — particularly these among the many 10 Winter Video games athletes added to the committee — can take the lead in lobbying to convey the Olympics again to the state.

“Our athletes are our greatest advocates and ambassadors and they are going to be there,” she stated, calling the choice by the U.S. and a number of other different nations to not ship athletes to the 1980 Summer season Video games in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan “gut-wrenching.”

Subsequent February additionally marks the 20-year anniversary of the 2002 Winter Video games, a milestone that’s anticipated to kick off a extra public marketing campaign to make sure Utahns keep smitten by one other bid. Again in November 2017, a ballot commissioned by bid backers discovered 89% of Utahns supported trying again for the Winter Games.

How Utahns view bidding once more amid the political turmoil of Beijing’s second Olympics in 14 years stays to be seen, however Starks is optimistic.

“The Olympics are probably the most distinctive and highly effective methods that may showcase that we reside in a world with differing views and generally, very sharp variations of philosophy and opinion and but, it celebrates shared humanity,” he stated, creating a possible catalyst for optimistic change.

“That’s a wholesome factor, I don’t suppose we ever need to lose that,” Starks stated. “Utah is de facto a part of that world group. Whereas we might not be capable to affect issues which can be going down in different nations, we need to ensure that everybody is aware of the world is welcome right here.”

Grid View

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  The Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns is pictured on Thursday, June 17, 2021.
  
  
  Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Information
  
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  Catherine Raney Norman, chairwoman of the Salt Lake Metropolis-Utah Committee of the Video games, and Steve Starks, committee vice chairman and Olympic adviser to Gov. Spencer Cox, discuss future Olympic Video games on the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns on Thursday, June 17, 2021.
  
  
  Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Information
  
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  Curlers compete on the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns on Thursday, June 17, 2021.
  
  
  Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Information
  
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  Vivian Torsak helps sister Mila on the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns on Thursday, June 17, 2021.
  
  
  Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Information
  
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  Curlers compete on the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns on Thursday, June 17, 2021.
  
  
  Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Information
  
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  Oliver Pekar coaches skater Ani Aleksanyan on the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns on Thursday, June 17, 2021.
  
  
  Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Information
  
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  Younger skaters observe on the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns on Thursday, June 17, 2021.
  
  
  Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Information