SALT LAKE CITY — The International Olympic Committee has made recent announcements in Mumbai that could be good news for a possible 2034 Winter Olympics game in Salt Lake City.
IOC President Thomas Bach explained that the Future Host Committee is working on announcing the hosts for both 2030 and 2034 by next year.
Fraser Bullock, president and CEO of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, calls this “fantastic.”
“We’re hoping for 2034, but we don’t want to wait 4 more years, we’d like to get that award sooner rather than later," said Bullock. "We think this today puts us right on the path towards that,” said Bullock.
He added that Utah ticks all the boxes that the committee is looking for.
“We have all the venues in place and they’re all active, we have these beautiful mountains and in this era of climate change," he said. "During the key period of February, we’re plenty cold enough at night to be able to make any snow that’s needed even for the foreseeable future.”
The list of places being considered to host the games is growing smaller. The committee says out of the 15 locations in mind, two would not be reliable anymore due to climate change making the places unsuitable.
“What makes Utah really special is that we are so far away from the oceans, and we have such a high elevation," said assistant state climatologist Dr. Jon Meyer. "That causes us to have just the right ingredients of temperatures and humidities when we do get snow, that the kind of snow that we get is scientifically, the greatest snow on earth."
He said it’s hard to know how our snow will be with every passing year.
“If we’re to look out 11 years down the road, I don’t think anyone can give you a straight answer on if Utah will have a great winter for that specific year,” said Dr. Meyer. “But we’re absolutely seeing that year-to-year variability of our winters and any of our seasons in general getting more extreme and that has been something that has been predicted for many decades as an effect of climate change.”
Fraser is hopeful that Utah stays in the running, and gets to host the Winter Olympics again.
“We have 82% public support, which is kind of unheard of in the Olympic movement,” he said.
The committee is expected to make a decision by the 2024 Paris Games in July.
