A bid for the future: Salt Lake City goes for the gold.

A BID FOR THE FUTURE

On June 15 the fate of Salt Lake City's 1998 Winter Olympic bid will be decided by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at a meeting in Birmingham, England. This is the city's third time at bat as a candidate to host the Olympic flame. Whether that proves to be a

According to Tom Welch, chairman and president of the Salt Lake organizing committee, "If the IOC will measure us by the criteria established, specifically which city provides the greatest opportunity for a successful Games, which will do the most to develop the Olympic movement, and which offers the most compatible environment for developing the Winter Games, Salt Lake City has an excellent chance."

After a visit in April, International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch described Salt Lake City as a "very strong, strong candidate" and added that those strengths "were not in its promises but in its realities."

"What that means," according to Neil Richardson, chairman of the Salt Lake bid's technical committee, "is that other cities are promising to build the necessary facilities if they get the Games, while we've made the commitment to build the facilities up front. A lot of times in the past, what cities have promised and the realities haven't been the same thing. We have credibility, and this makes us a very strong contender."

The Utah Advantage

Indeed, the list of Salt Lake City's advantages is very long and impressive. "All the other bidding cities will have to build $400 to $600 million worth of new facilities, while ours are already in place or under construction. Salt Lake has an awful lot going for it. We see ourselves as a small city, but we're the biggest in contention for the Winter Games," Richardson said.

Here are some of those strengths:

Transportation. The city's international airport serves more than 12 million passengers annually, with 500 daily flights. It's only 10 minutes from the center of the city, and would be the biggest and the best airport ever to serve an Olympic Winter Games.

A system of six-lane and four-lane highways links all proposed Olympic venues. The metropolitan bus system already serves many of the sites and currently operates more buses than were used during the Calgary Games.

All proposed venues are within 55 minutes driving time of Salt Lake City. Most are closer, and that is very important, Richardson said. "The infrastructure of how people get from one venue to another is very important, because the visitors who come to see the Games will have the opportunity to see more of the events."

Sports Facilities. Park City, Deer Valley, and Snowbasin resorts, where the alpine events are planned, are world-class ski resorts with the proven ability to host international competitions of Olympic caliber on the "Greatest Snow on Earth."

The new Jazz Arena, with its 20,500 seating capacity, is being built to Olympic standards and would host the ice hockey, figure skating, and short-track speed-skating finals.

Cross country and biathlon events are planned for a new course at Mountain Dell Recreation Area. The course is FIS-approved for World Cup events.

A bobsled/luge run and a ski-jumping complex are under construction and will be completed by 1993 at a site near Park City to be called Winter Sports Park. A speed-skating oval is planned near the University of Utah campus.

Housing. More than 50,000 visitors can be accommodated within the greater Salt Lake area. Hotels range from luxury suites to economy accommodations. Some 9,000 of the finest hotel units are located in downtown Salt Lake City, most within walking distance of the new Jazz Arena and the Salt Palace. An additional 5,000 to 10,000 rooms will be made available through a visitor-host program. This large number of rooms will allow more people than ever before to attend the Games.

Four thousand athletes will be housed in a single Olympic Village at the University of Utah, in a combination of existing and new student dormitories adjacent to the University's sports and recreation complex, which includes weight-training facilities and various gymnasiums. This single Olympic Village concept is an exceptional strength, according to Richardson, "because that's what the Olympic experience is about, bringing people together."

Support Facilities. The Salt Palace Convention Center is proposed as the location of the Main Media Center. With more than 20,000 square meters of open space, 35 meeting rooms, and full communications services, the facility (along with Utah's ideal time zone for international television broadcasts) will ensure optimum press coverage of the event.

The University of Utah Medical Center, a world-renowed teaching hospital and medical school, will serve as the Olympic medical center. Along with the city's other fine medical facilities, Salt Lake would offer athletes and visitors the best medical support the event has ever enjoyed.

The University of Utah's Rice Stadium, with its tremendous seating capacity, would also offer the opportunity for the most spectacular Winter Games opening and closing ceremonies ever.

People. Salt Lake City has a large population base which strongly supports the bid to host the Games, as evidenced by the public vote and commitment to build facilities and the thousands of volunteer hours that have gone into the campaign. According to Welch, this support comes from a broad cross-section of the community, including "politicians, business people, environmentalists, sports enthusiasts, senior citizens, school children - everyone. This community is service-minded and recognizes the uniqueness of the Olympics effort in bringing together the people of the world in a peaceful situation. They understand the commitment to excellent and how it will benefit our young people to be touched by this example and move them to strive more earnestly to perfect their own skills and abilities." Indeed, Salt Lake City has chosen the theme "The World Is Welcome Here" to represent "the willingness of its people to open their hearts and homes to the people of the world."

A Bid for History

Salt Lake City made its first bid to host the Winter Games in 1966 when it was chosen as the United States candidates. It lost that year to Sapporo, Japan, which hosted the 1972 Games. The following year, the U.S. Olympic Committee picked Denver over Salt Lake as its candidate, and Denver won the Games but later withdrew due to environmental concerns. The USOC designated Salt Lake City as the new U.S. candidate, but the IOC chose Innsbruck, Austria, to take Denver's place for 1976. In 1985, Salt Lake lost the U.S. campaign to Anchorage, Alaska, for the 1992 Games. Albertville, France, was chosen for 1992. Anchorage again won the U.S. nod for 1994, but Lillehammer, Norway, proved the winner.

For 1998, there are five international candidate cities competing for the honor: Salt Lake City; Nagano, Japan; Jaca, Spain; Ostersund, Sweden; and Aosta, Italy. June 15 at 10:30 a.m. Salt Lake time, the 92-member International Olympic Committee will make its decision. According to David Johnson, vice president for international relations for the Salt Lake organizing committee, the five candidates will make their final presentations in Birmingham. The voting will then take place in a series of rounds, with the city receiving the fewest votes being eliminated each round. The first city receiving 50 percent of the voting wins.

In addition to developing the technical facilities, Salt Lake City's campaign for the Games has included a massive public-relations effort, according to Johnson. Much of that effort of late has been devoted to familiarizing the IOC members with Salt Lake City. Many volunteers have been traveling worldwide to lobby international delegates on the city's behalf.

But the major push of the campaign has been to get those delegates to Salt Lake to see for themselves the advantages. "You can send documents, but we really develop credibility when they meet our people and see for themselves the advantages we have to offer," Johnson said. "When an IOC member comes to Salt Lake, they meet between 100 and 150 people and get the opportunity to see the personality of the city. We try to host them in people's homes and make them feel comfortable. Many have had the opportunity to ski and see first-hand that we're organized enough to put on the games." The city hopes to have hosted 60 to 64 of the 92 members of the committee by the Birmingham meeting.

Donations of planes, helicopters, limousines, catering services, marching bands, and other entertainments have helped Salt Lake City roll out the red carpet for delegates, according to Johnson. "There's been a tremendous commitment from a lot of people. Those are the heroes, hundred of them. We've got people working 16 hours a day for weeks until June 15. It's a marathon, and it doesn't stop."

Park City Mayor Brad Olch, also a member of the organizing committee, has been one of the key players in the effort to sell Salt Lake to the IOC. He sees the Games as a major benefit to his community. "Right now Park City is undergoing a lot of changes, and we're trying to get a handle on growth. I don't think the Games would have any adverse impact. Quite the opposite, Park City has had a lot of highs and lows, and the Games would help even that out for a more solid growth curve."

What the Chances Are

How's Salt Lake City doing? Will it win? That's a difficult question. Some people felt when Atlanta won the 1996 Summer Games that it hurt local chances, but a look at Olympic history shows otherwise. France, the United States, and Germany have all hosted both Summer and Winter Games in the same year. The next two Winter Games will be held in Europe, and not only have consecutive Games occurred frequently in Europe, but of the 17 Winter Games, all but four have been held on that continent. Samaranch also recently gave the city's bid a boost when he proclaimed that the location of the Summer Games "doesn't matter" and that Winter Games site selection would be judged on its own criteria.

When Welch was asked if he though Salt Lake City would win, he replied, "Well, that's a little like going to John Stockton before the seventh game of an NBA championship series and asking him if the team is going to win. Certainly all the elements are there, but we still have to go out and do our job. We have some good competition. Yes, there are some Lakers out there. It's going to be a photo finish, but we've always known that. This is the culmination of six or seven years of work."

Welch added, however, "Salt Lake is winning whether or not the Games are awarded to us in Birmingham. Our objective was to clearly establish ourselves as a North American winter sports center, with strong developmental programs for elite athletes of the Western Hemisphere. We want to be a place where young people can come to get an education as well as develop themselves in their sport. Our commitment is to people and facilities. We are developing a center that will provide opportunities for teams from Europe and Asia to come to North America and hold competitions back to back in the fine facilities in Calgary and then in Salt Lake."

Another benefit of the bidding process, Welch stressed, has been the way it has unified the community. "The experience of bidding for the Games has been a unifying process, and we're better for it."

Rose Gilchrist is a free-lance writer based in Salt Lake City.

PHOTO : Salt Lake City is a prime contender for the Winter Olympics because most of the infrastructures and facilities are already in place and in close proximity to one another.

1. Salt Lake City International Airport 2. IOC Hotel 3. Main Media Center 4. Ice Hockey and Figure-Skating Arena 5. Olympic Village 6. Olympic Stadium 7. Olympic Medical Center 8. Speed-Skating Venue 9. Cross-Country and Biathlon 10. Bobsled, Luge, and Ski-Jump Venue 11. Downhill and Super G Venue 12. Slalom and Giant-Slalom Venue