Christmas Eve will mark five months since the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2034 Winter Games to Utah, the deadline for forming an entity to run the state’s next Olympics. But there’s been little talk publicly about the transition from a bid to an organizing committee.
“We’re making daily progress. We’re putting a lot of work into this,” said Fraser Bullock, president and CEO of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games behind the bid. “We know we have a deadline but we don’t want to rush and maybe make a mistake or something like that. We’d rather be methodical and thoughtful to get to the right point where everybody feels comfortable.”
Bid leaders are in discussions with Gov. Spencer Cox, who signed the IOC host contract that commits Utah taxpayers to picking up any financial shortfalls in the privately funded event expected to cost $4 billion, Utah Senate President Stuart Adams, Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, and U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee officials.
Cox said in a statement he’s “excited about an organizing committee that will help bring new economic opportunities to Utah and engage with communities across the state in the spirt of sport.” The governor has said the Olympics are a big part of what’s he’s described as “Utah’s decade.”
For the 2002 Winter Games, it was the Salt Lake City mayor who had to sign the contract with the IOC, although the state had pledged to indemnify the city against any losses. Changes made by the IOC now allow the state to directly guarantee the Games, so Cox’s signature on the contract made the state responsible, along with the USOPC, for forming the organizing committee.
That gives the governor and legislative leaders “a very prominent role in the process” since they have to sign off, Bullock said, even though information about what that should look like is being gathered from “a broad set of people,” including members of the business community and local government officials.
Utah’s capital city isn’t stepping aside for the state, however.
“Salt Lake City is eager to play a central role in the organization and preparation for the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, and the formation of the OCOG (Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games) will mark an exciting step in the process,” Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall’s spokesman, Andrew Wittenberg, said in a statement.
Mendenhall, a key figure in the bid, “has had regular discussions with leaders of the bid committee in recent weeks and looks forward to the work ahead to deliver another successful Games that highlight the best of our city and state while creating lasting benefits for residents,” Wittenberg, said.
The leaders of the Utah Legislature had little to say about what’s being decided behind the scenes, everything from who should run the organizing committee to its structure and membership, and the “governing principles” that will guide decisions about the 2034 Games.
“We continue to work with the USOPC and IOC to make sure we have the best committee for a successful Utah Games. Nothing has been finalized,” House spokeswoman Alexa Musselman said in a statement.
The Colorado-based USOPC also said little.
“The construction of the OCOG is a work in progress and we don’t have an update to share at this point,” a spokesman said. “Per the host city contract, the USOPC is working collaboratively with community leaders to come up with a structure and membership that best serves the transition from winning the Games to hosting the Games. The work will be complete in December.”
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The IOC has the final say over what’s known as an Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, or OCOG. The host contract spells out requirements such as making host country IOC and USOPC officials members along with recent Olympic and Paralympic athletes and having a “fair representation of men and women.”
When the IOC named Salt Lake City the host of Utah’s first Olympics in 1995, what was then a 19-member bid committee automatically became the organizing committee, with a few new members. Later, the global scandal surrounding the $1 million in cash and gifts Utah bidders gave to IOC members led to a shake up and U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney was recruited to run the Games.
The way the bid committee is set up makes that difficult. The governing board that managed the bid, chaired by four-time Olympic speedskater Catherine Raney Norman, had up to 40 members, with four appointed by the governor and legislative leadership. The larger strategic board that advised the bid could have up to 50 members.
With approximately 80 people currently serving on the two bid committee boards, that was “too large” to transition to an organizing committee, Bullock said, although some members of those boards may be named to the new entity. The list of members includes political, business and community leaders as well as athletes.
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Even before the IOC’s decision last summer, Bullock was seen as remaining at the helm.
“Fraser Bullock is probably the best prepared of any Olympic CEO in history,” according to an assessment made then by Romney, who had chosen Bullock to be his No. 2 at what was known as the Salt Lake Organizing Committee or SLOC.
“That sounds like hyperbole, but look, he did a fabulous job at our Games. And he’s been working in the Olympic world for the last 20 years. So he really knows his stuff,” the Utah Republican said of his friend and former business associate. “Who else would conceivably measure up to the height that Fraser has in that capacity?”
Cox, too, had high praise last summer for Bullock and agreed he should continue in his role. But the governor also made it clear that with nearly a decade to go before the 2034 Games, the organizing committee needs to have a succession plan in place, saying that Bullock would “also be preparing people not just to help him in that, but to one day succeed him.”
Bullock, who has led the latest bid effort since its launch more than a decade ago, said what he’ll do for the organizing committee is “not for me to say because, obviously, we have to get all of the pieces in place. I just want to help and the final structure will come out in December.”
The 69-year-old added, “whatever role I play, one of my most important responsibilities is to train the next generation.”