When members of the International Olympic Committee turn in for the night during the 2002 Winter Games, it will be in rooms at the Little America Hotel ? not the posh suites in the new Grand America Hotel across the street.
They'll get to Olympic events in Chevy Suburbans and Tahoes rather than riding in limousines. When they get hungry, they can help themselves to hot dogs, cold cuts and chili, served up in a heated tent.
Not bad, but not exactly the treatment the IOC had grown accustomed to before the Salt Lake bid scandal surfaced more than three years ago.
In the old days, the IOC expected ? and received ? the best hotel rooms in town, the finest meals and luxury sedans.
They paid a set amount a night toward the cost of the hotel room ? $200 in Salt Lake City's case ? and the organizing committee picked up the rest of the tab.
All that changed, however, amid allegations that Salt Lake Olympic bidders tried to buy the votes of IOC members with more than $1 million in cash and gifts.
Suddenly, the Salt Lake Organizing Committee was having trouble raising money from corporate sponsors. And the Switzerland-based IOC, already seen as putting on aristocratic airs, was in need of an image boost.
For one thing, SLOC President Mitt Romney was able to trim about $2 million from what was then a $3.5 million budget to take care of IOC members, many of whom are arriving this week for several days of IOC meetings before the Feb. 8 opening ceremonies of the Games. "They're going to see the results of a more modest approach to provisions for their stay here," Romney said.
One of the most financially important changes, Romney said, was reducing the number of seats set aside for the so-called Olympic family, a group that includes international sports federation officials and national Olympic committee leaders as well as the IOC.
"We have shrunk the size of the Olympic family stands by 30 to 50 percent," he said.
The food available in the Olympic family lounges at each venue will be supplied by sponsors, such as the hot dogs made by Certified Angus Beef, Romney said.
"We have tried not to be anything less than hospitable, but we will not try to show off our Western cuisine in our hospitality areas," he said. "Instead, we will provide good nourishment, but it will be modest fare ? it's not filet mignon and salmon."
Romney credited new IOC President Jacques Rogge with proving that "there's a changing culture at the highest levels of the IOC."
The new IOC president has said, for example, he does not want a police escort during the Games or special flags on his car, a departure from the way his predecessor usually traveled. Rogge will also be staying at the Olympic Village during the Games.
Rogge said during a tour of the Main Media Center at the Salt Palace on Thursday that the accommodations made by the organizing committee for the IOC are "perfect."
IOC members who had already arrived in Salt Lake City on Thursday weren't complaining. "I think if one uses common sense, it's perfect," said Ottavio Cinquanta, an IOC member from Italy and the head of the International Skating Union.
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