A year after the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, no one seems to agree on the legacy the Olympics left behind.
Some point to Atlanta's new stadiums, college dormitories and city park and see success. Others recall the once-in-a-lifetime event described by the world press as the "Glitch Games" and see failure.Utahns preparing for the 2002 Winter Games are already trying to ensure the Olympics will leave a lasting legacy to the state that everyone can agree is a success.
For the Salt Lake Organizing Committee that means putting on a Winter Games free from the problems that plagued Atlanta. Organizers are being careful not to promise the biggest and the best.
Instead, they intend to work closely with the public and private entities that are involved in the Olympics so everything runs smoothly. That means more than just the skiing, skating and other sporting events.
In Atlanta, the competitions attracted record numbers of athletes, spectators and television viewers. Few had any complaints. The complaints were made instead about transportation, technology, security and street vendors.
The Olympic committee, as well as a number of local and state agencies, sent employees to Atlanta last summer to observe firsthand how much work goes into putting on the Games.
Since then, they've all been busy. Work is under way on everything from planning needed improvements to the state's winter sports facilities to fixing the freeways.
The state and several cities, including Salt Lake City, Ogden and Park City, are hiring Olympic coordinators to work closely with the organizing committee on such issues as compensation for government services.
Games people can play
The organizing committee's lasting contribution to the state will be sports facilities. There is no surplus anticipated in the $1 billion-plus budget for putting on the Winter Games.
But that budget includes a total of $40 million to keep the bobsled and luge track, ski jumps and other facilities at the Utah Winter Sports Park near Park City open long after the Olympics are over.
John Ruger, a member of the organizing committee's board of trustees and head of the U.S. Olympic Committee Athletes' Advisory Council during Atlanta's Games, said Utah will be much better off than Georgia.
"People in Salt Lake should be very, very proud of the legacy of facilities we're leaving," Ruger said. "You go to the Olympic Park in Atlanta, and all you see are bricks with people's names on them."
Besides those bricks in the still-unfinished Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgians also were left with new college dorms and a number of sports facilities, including a stadium now home to the Atlanta Braves.
Few of those sports facilities will be available for use by both elite and everyday athletes. That, Ruger and other organizers say, is what makes Utah's Olympic legacy so much stronger.
Already, youngsters are getting a chance to try ski jumping, luge and other winter Olympic sports for the first time on the same facilities that the nation's top athletes are using to train for world-class competition.
Utah taxpayers invested $59 million in the sports park and other Olympic facilities, including a speed-skating oval in Kearns. Organizers plan to repay that money to state and local governments.
In exchange, the state will turn over those facilities to the organizing committee as soon as next year so they can be readied for Olympic competition. A private, nonprofit foundation will run the facilities after the Games.
Towering legacy
On the University of Utah campus, the most visible evidence of preparations for the 2002 Winter Games is a 177-foot concrete tower that spikes above Rice Stadium.
The tower is one of two to be built as part of the stadium renovation and expansion in preparation for the 2002 Winter Games.
The expanded 46,500-seat stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games. The Olympic cauldron will burn there for the duration of the 17-day event.
The U. has bonded for $55 million to finance the stadium project, which U. officials say will be repaid through private contributions, $8 million rent to be paid by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee and user fees.
Meanwhile, work on the Olympic Village, located on the U. campus, is still in the planning stages. An architectural firm should be selected by the end of July, said Thomas Nycum, the U.'s vice president of administrative services.
"As far as the U. is concerned, we are on schedule to complete the Olympic Village and have it ready for occupancy by the fall of 2000," he said.
The organizing committee has been heavily involved in the housing plans, which will mesh International Olympic Committee specifications for athlete housing with the U.'s student housing needs.
The village will house some 4,000 athletes and officials during the 2002 Winter Games. SLOC will contribute $28 million to the project, estimated to cost upwards of $120 million.
Preliminary plans envision a mix of dormitories, suites and apartments serving underclassmen, married students and graduate students.
"The university will have the legacy of a new housing complex that's going to be one of the best in the nation, and the athletes will have excellent accommodations," said Richard Tyler, Olympic Village director for SLOC.
The transfer of 11 acres at Fort Douglas to the state of Utah needed for the Olympic Village is nearly a done deal, says Bill Johnson, legislative director and military issues adviser to Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah.
Johnson said Hansen and Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, have been successful in securing $12.7 million to construct new facilities for two Army Reserve units that would be displaced by the land transfer.
The units are the 419th Transportation Company, which supplies fuel, and the 299th Quartermaster Supply Company. The new facilities likely will be constructed near Camp Williams, Johnson said. The rest of the 96th U.S. Regional Support Command units located at Fort Douglas will not be affected by this exchange, Johnson said.
Transportation boost
Olympics or no Olympics, major Wasatch Front transportation improvements were going to happen.
The reconstruction of I-15 and construction of light-rail transit had been talked about for years. And although both certainly got a kick in the posterior when Salt Lake City was named host of the 2002 Winter Games, Utah's exploding growth had already pushed those projects along.
A planned 20-year expansion of Salt Lake International Airport also was in the works long before the announcement. And a commuter rail line between Payson and Brigham City, now under study, had long been envisioned.
What the 2002 Games have done for the region's transportation needs is add a sense of urgency and the hope of garnering more federal support to pay for the work than might otherwise be possible.
Any motorist upset with the Utah Department of Transportation's decision to use the less predictable design-build method to rebuild 17 miles of I-15 has the Olympics to thank. The work could have taken seven years using traditional methods but was sped up so it could be completed before the Games.
And once Salt Lake City became an Olympic city, the Utah Transit Authority had to step up efforts to build a $312 million light-rail system if it was to be completed in time for the Olympics. Immediately after the announcement, UTA found federal officials more willing to help get light rail on track.
An airport-to-University of Utah light-rail extension could be constructed a decade or more from now. But with the Olympics on the way, it has a better chance of receiving federal funds and becoming reality in just a few years.
"It's kind of hard to justify federal funds for two fixed-guideway lines at a time," said Mick Crandall, program director of the Wasatch Front Regional Council. "So if we are able to complete those two lines at the same time, I think we can thank the Olympics."
Dave Huber, UTA's director of operations, was working for Atlanta's mass transit system during last year's Summer Olympics. He said Salt Lake City is way ahead of its southern counterpart in planning for the Olympics.
"There's been a lot of initial planning here that's been done by a lot of agencies," Huber said. "The fact that we're all talking and meeting this early is certainly a plus."
But money remains an unknown. Funding for I-15 and other road projects, several light-rail spurs, the airport and commuter rail all were included in a $4.3 billion wish list the state submitted to Congress. A firm response to that request won't be known until the fall, and support from Washington could change as the Olympics near. Already, though, federal money has been made available for several transportation studies, including light-rail expansion.
"At this point, the Olympics has clearly given Utah some priority in competing for federal funds," Crandall said.
Gateway to the world
Salt Lake City Mayor Deedee Corradini wants to capitalize on the Winter Games in a similar way - using its clout to gather money for projects she feels strongly about.
Take the Gateway - the area between approximately 900 South and North Temple and 300 West and I-15 now filled with long viaducts, rail yards and unsightly industrial businesses. Corradini wants to turn the area into an eclectic, funky, urban mixture of uses, visually and pragmatically suitable for the influx of Olympic visitors. The Gateway area has also been discussed as a possible Olympic park area.
"With regard to the Gateway generally, (at the Olympics) they'll need hotels, they'll need this, they'll need that," said Deputy Mayor Brian Hatch. Housing is also a primary issue for city officials. The city is contemplating a proposal to provide housing for anywhere from 500 to 2,700 of the 12,000-plus journalists expected to cover the Games - perhaps partly in the Gateway area.
But Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Alice Steiner said cumbersome timetables and requirements have somewhat dampened officials' enthusiasm for submitting a proposal.
Even apart from that particular project, Salt Lake City is looking for opportunities to build housing that will endure after the Games have gone, particularly low-income housing.
One thing Salt Lake City wants to avoid, Hatch said, is Atlanta's overt commercialization. Unlike Atlanta, Salt Lake officials don't plan to license corporate booths for placement on city property, though there's some wiggle room there.
The city has budgeted for a full-time Olympics coordinator ($75,000 yearly salary, with an additional $100,000 set aside for Olympics opportunities planning), though no one has been hired yet.
Substainable benefit
The Olympics scorecard being kept by advocates for the poor isn't nearly as positive.
They greet at least one promise by Olympics planners - economic benefit for the state - with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Atlanta didn't bring long-lasting benefit to people in the lower-income community, said Steve Erickson, director of the Utah Housing Technical Assistance Program. "The rising tide didn't lift all the boats. Some people found employment, some housing was created, but it was very limited."
"We're going to have millions and millions of dollars coming into the state, and there's an opportunity to see it benefits everybody," said Patrick Poulin, director of Utah Issues. "We have an opportunity to have a sustainable benefit to the state for all Utahns, and we need to not look at it as just some kind of political or ego booster."
Atlanta got an extra homeless shelter out of Games preparations, Erickson said, but it was a painful process that is still being litigated. And some of the efforts centered around "pushing homeless people out of town," according to Poulin.
"We would want to avoid that kind of problem," Erickson said. "It's not just a physical problem but a civil rights problem and an image problem."
The Atlanta Games, on the other hand, did "quite well, and we could do even better" with outreach to minorities and women business owners from a procurement point of view. Opening the procurement process is crucial, the advocates agree.
Dave Barnes, director of the Coalition of Religious Communities, pooh-poohed the notion that the Games are simply a sporting event. "We recognize them as a sporting event, but also it's generating millions of dollars, and resources can be used for the betterment of the community."
Greener Games
Environmentalists never considered the Olympics would better the community. They just wanted to minimize potential damage to the Wasatch Front's ecosystem that the Games might bring.
As a result, their most fundamental question over how the 2002 Winter Games might affect the fragile natural environment of the Wasatch Mountains was settled years ago.
That's when Games boosters agreed to keep the 17-day event out of the delicate Little and Big Cottonwood canyons that provide much of Salt Lake County with its drinking water. Olympic organizers and environmentalists alike agreed that Park City and environs - long ago given over to development - were the preferred venues for much of the action.
Environmentalism has surfaced in recent times, too, perhaps most evident in proactive steps taken by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. The most significant of those moves came in November, when the committee hired a $45,000-a-year environmental consultant to lend the Winter Games a green theme.
Diane Conrad said her mandate is to "raise the environmental consciousness" in Utah and said the Olympics were the perfect vehicle to do it.
"We would be talking classroom education, we could be talking (environmental) consulting companies sponsoring various events," she said, noting such strategies were employed in Atlanta last year and by past Winter Olympic cities that include Lillehammer, Norway; Albertville, France; and Calgary, Alberta.
Tried-and-true
If there's one Olympic misstep Utah oranizers say they'll avoid, it's the critical technology miscues that knocked Atlanta out of medal contention during the 1996 Summer Games.
Problems with cellular telephone overload and resulting dispatches from IBM's Info '96 system marred what was billed as the most technologically advanced Games ever. The glitches made the Salt Lake Olympic Committee embrace more tightly its pledge to stick to "tried-and-true" technology in 2002.
That mantra applies to people, too: SLOC hired Sharon Kingman in January as director of telecommunications. She worked for Bell-South previously and oversaw telecommunications during the Atlanta games.
Her task in Utah: make sure communications are flawless for the Olympic family - the IOC, USOC, athletes, media, etc. - during the 2002 Winter Games.
One lesson from Atlanta: "It has to be very apparent how to use something or you're introducing new levels of difficulty," she said. The cellular telephone debacle occurred because many of the 30,000 people who rented phones during the Games didn't wait for activation signals before trying to dial.
Another surprise was how early the city shifted into game mode, Kingman said. Broadcast media were among the first to arrive and begin making demands on organizers as they set up their headquarters. "All systems have to be in place three to four weeks before the opening ceremonies," Kingman said.
While technology sponsors have not yet been named for the 2002 Winter Games, Kingman is already working with the state to line up adequate radio wave frequencies from the Federal Communications Commission to ensure gap-less communications during the Games.
She said the committee also is negotiating with wireless and personal communications service providers for sponsorships. Arranging those deals early is important so the companies can build networks that completely blanket the area with telecommunication networks where events will be held.
Preparing for disaster
On the flip side, Utah organizers say Atlanta provided a blueprint for success for medical care.
When a murderous bomb exploded in Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park a year ago, the area's health-care providers were prepared, said David B. Wirthlin, the Utahn most involved in setting up medical coverage for the 2002 Winter Games.
"They had their EMT people, who were on call, respond quickly. They had the hospitals identified so that they could send the most serious patients to one hospital and the less serious to other hospitals," said Wirthlin, executive director for fund development at the Intermountain Health Care system, based in Salt Lake City.
IHC has the contract to administer health care for the 2002 Winter Olympics and the Paralympics that will follow, both for participants and the general public, so the organization has been carefully studying the Atlanta experience. Although IHC will do the work largely without compensation, that doesn't mean it is handing SLOC a blank check.
"We feel as a member of the community that we should participate and assist this effort," he said. As a main part of its mission, IHC is a nonprofit organization, offering medical care to all who need it regardless of ability to pay.
In Utah, medical support alone is nearly Olympian in scope, with first-aid stations, field clinics and hospitals that will care for ill or injured athletes, spectators, coaches and others attending the Games at more than half a dozen locations scattered throughout the northern part of the state.
But it won't be an IHC-only show. The chain will depend on other hospitals and many volunteers; notably, University Hospital, working with IHC, will provide clinical services for athletes at the Olympic Village.
The heavy reliance on volunteers will extend to "physicians, nurses, physical therapists, EMTs," he said. "Our success will depend on the volunteer response, and we're optimistic that we'll have more than enough numbers." The volunteers will include trained people from many organizations, not just IHC. State, county and city health agencies will help out, too.
Planning ahead
The more than two dozen law enforcement officers who traveled to Atlanta for last summer's Olympics say they also learned valuable lessons during the 21-day event.
"I never realized how huge, involved and complicated (the Olympics) is," said Salt Lake County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Ken Miles. "For me, it would have been difficult to plan (security), without seeing the Games."
Fully understanding the logistics involved in securing an event like the Olympics is only possible "by experiencing it firsthand," Miles said.
Miles is just one member of the ad hoc group that organized training experiences in Atlanta, which now calls itself the Law Enforcement Olympic Coordinating Council. Every chief or head of a law enforcement agency where an Olympic venue is located is on the executive council.
The group was repeatedly warned by Atlanta officers and Georgia troopers that their biggest mistake had been waiting too long to come up with a security plan.
Because of poor planning, Georgia's law enforcement agencies ended up fighting over the same money and in turn fighting over turf - something everyone on the coordinating council has vowed to avoid.
Nearing completion
In terms of Olympic facilities, West Valley City's preparation is nearly complete.
The new $54.2 million E Center of West Valley City, which will host the women's hockey events, will be finished by Sept. 19. The West Valley Acord Ice Center, which will serve as a practice sheet, was finished early in June.
Likewise, the first phase of construction on the Oquirrh Park Skating Oval, which will host the Olympic long-track speed skating events, is nearly complete and Phase II will begin by 1999. Oval manager Bob Bills, a former member of the U.S. Ski Team and a former coach of the U.S. Cycling Team, said the next step will be to build a roof over the oval.