Utah announces bid for 2nd Winter Olympics

The bid for 2026 is contingent on the U.S. Olympic Committee deciding it will endorse a city for those games. Utah announced a bid far in advance to scare off any competitors, Reno-Tahoe among them. Nevada officials said Monday they were waiting for a USOC decision before making a possible bid of their own.

"You can't do this on the cheap. It's an expensive proposition," Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said Monday. "Utah is the smart and fiscally responsible place — we already have venues in place. There is no better place in the world than here."

Forty percent of U.S. winter athletes train in Utah, one reason the state is looking at adding housing to the Utah Olympic Park, the ski jumping and sliding venue, he said.

Utah's governor and Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker announced the tentative bid outside the University of Utah stadium, where ceremonies were held for the 2002 Winter Games.

"We are well-positioned financially and otherwise to host a Winter Games," Becker said.

The 2002 games were successful but left Salt Lake tarnished by scandal. Utah showered $1 million in cash, gifts and other favors on International Olympic Committee delegates in a scandal that rewrote the rule book for Olympic bids. Two Salt Lake bid executives were tried on federal racketeering charges but were acquitted.

The scandal "didn't start in Utah, but it ended in Utah," Herbert said of the scandal's legacy. "We'll start with that attitude and bid on the up and up."

Fraser Bullock, who was the No. 2 for the previous Salt Lake Organizing Committee, said Utah can put on the 2026 games with private funding for $1.67 billion, relying on the federal government to cover hundreds of millions of dollars extra for security.

"The IOC likes to move games around, so that's our biggest negative," Bullock said.

He said Salt Lake City's biggest advantage is having a large urban center next to the 11,000-foot Wasatch Range, with improved highways and a light-rail transit network to get spectators around.

With new bidding rules in place for candidate cities and IOC delegates, Bullock said Utah can make a clean pitch on a level playing field.