Could Salt Lake City be asked to host another Olympic Winter Games in 2030 instead of 2034?
It sure sounded like a firm “no” from the International Olympic Committee Thursday in the most definitive statement yet about whether Salt Lake City, just named the preferred host for 2034, is also a fallback for 2030 should France’s French Alps bid falter.
“We are extremely confident with this process thanks to the quality of the submissions that have been made,” the IOC’s Olympic Games executive director, Christophe Dubi, told reporters during a news conference from Paris, where IOC leaders are meeting.
Asked if the IOC would review Salt Lake City as a potential host for 2030 as well as 2034, Dubi answered, “We will not. The two are mutually exclusive. We have one targeted dialogue, French Alps 2030; one targeted dialogues Salt Lake City 2034.”
Both the French Alps and Salt Lake City were advanced Wednesday by the IOC Executive Board to the next phase in the new bid process, known as targeted dialogue, where a contract to host and many other details must be worked out.
A public celebration of Salt Lake City’s new status as a “preferred host” for 2034 is planned for 6 p.m. Friday at the 2002 Winter Games Olympic cauldron next to the University of Utah’s Rice-Eccles stadium, the site of the opening and closing ceremonies in 2002.
The final vote by the full IOC membership on the 2030 and 2034 hosts won’t be until next July, just before the start of the 2024 Summer Games in Paris. Between now and then, there are deadlines beginning in February for the necessary paperwork and financial guarantees.
Site visits by the Switzerland-based IOC’s Future Host Commission that evaluates bids are set for April, followed by a meeting in May to finalize recommendations. In June, IOC leaders will review their findings.
That’s an “aggressive” timeline, Dubi said, but one he believes both the French Alps and Salt Lake City can meet. The Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games has already completed just about all of the paperwork and secured guarantees for 2030 and 2034.
France’s bid, however, still has to come up with more specifics about staging a Winter Games in the country’s northern and southern mountains. That includes identifying a venue for speedskating, which may be temporary or even located outside France.
What gives him confidence, Dubi said, is the backing both bids have.
“One of the key criteria that we were looking into is the political support and you have seen what those two have been able to produce,” he said. “We also looked at public support, outstanding in the context of Salt Lake City, very strong as well in the French Alps.”
That all “bodes extremely well” for both the French Alps and Salt Lake City, Dubi said.
The IOC has been reluctant to talk about what would happen under the flexible bid process being used for the first time to select a Winter Games host should the late entry for 2030 not come together.
“No speculation on something that we believe will not materialize,” was Dubi’s initial response. “In other words, if I take it from the other angle, the proposals that have been looked at ... from the French Alps and (from) Salt Lake City are extremely strong.”
Salt Lake City was bidding to host again in either 2030 or 2034, but made it clear waiting until the later date was preferable to avoid competing for domestic sponsors with the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.
But Utah bidders also said they’d be willing to step up if needed to host in 2030. A year ago, the only other two cities in the running, Sapporo, Japan; and Vancouver, Canada; were both struggling with support.
IOC leaders responded then by delaying a decision on advancing bids and instead, opened up the race to new competitors — Sweden, Switzerland and France, the last country to get in the race.
The new bid process was altered by IOC leaders Wednesday to grant Switzerland a previously unheard of “privileged” status for the 2038 Winter Games. The Swiss have until 2027 to sell the IOC on their national-scale bid before facing competition.
With hosts potentially lined up for at least another 15 years, there’s no longer any hurry to consider a proposed rotation of the Winter Olympics among pre-selection locations deemed able to provide climate reliability amid global warming.