Understanding the last-minute IOC contract change for the 2034 Winter Games

The last-minute addition of a new termination clause in Utah’s contract to host the 2034 Winter Games has attracted a lot of attention. But it’s not the kind bid leaders expected when they agreed to the change sparked by a U.S. Justice Department investigation into an international doping controversy.

The new clause is being described as “blackmail” and promoting “dirty Games.”

What it does is allow the International Olympic Committee to take back the 2034 Games awarded on July 24 in Paris if “the supreme authority of the World Anti Doping Agency in the fight against doping is not fully respected or if the application of the World Anti-Doping Code is hindered or undermined” by the United States.

“I’ve obviously seen many opinions and stories,” Fraser Bullock , president and CEO of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, said after his recent return to the United States. “My hope is that people understand the two fundamental principles behind all this.”

Those principles, Bullock said, are supporting a “clean” Games where athletes compete without the advantage of performance-enhancing drugs, and working to resolve tensions between the Canadian-based World Anti Doping Agency, or WADA, and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, or USADA, that have been “festering for years.”

He said the tensions are what’s behind the current controversy around Chinese swimmers who weren’t barred from competition despite testing positive for a banned substance. But even though it’s up to Utah organizers and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to mend the rift, Bullock doesn’t believe the state is at risk of losing the 2034 Games.

“I don’t worry about the Games being pulled for a moment because I know we’re the right fit for the IOC. Utah is a perfect place for them,” the bid leader said. “But we have challenges that will come up from time to time and this is one of them. But every challenge is an opportunity and our opportunity is to help be a catalyst to solving a problem.”

USOPC Chair Gene Sykes, who was just named a member of the IOC, is also confident Utah will remain the host of the 2034 Winter Games.

“No one wants to see Utah put in a position where they’re not hosting the 2034 Games. I do not believe this is going to have any impact on the opportunity,” Sykes told the Deseret News from the 2024 Summer Games in Paris. “I would say to Utahns, ‘Please rest assured. This is not something you need to fear.’”

Sykes pushed back against the critics.

“I do not accept the view that this is blackmail. I do not think we accepted some condition that is an unmanageable condition,” the U.S. Olympic leader said, noting he was advised by legal counsel that the added language does not place a new obligation on either the USOPC or Utah organizers.

“There’s nothing new about this that is an obligation because we’ve already said in the contract that we support the World Anti Doping Code. It’s part of the structure of how U.S. Olympic sport operates with sport all throughout the world,” Sykes said. “This was designed to ameliorate anxiety.”

The intent, he said, was “to address a very short-term issue, which is how to remind all of us in the United States that we are signatories and participants in the world anti-doping system and to see us say that we take that with a great deal of respect and we treat it as something we are prepared to show our commitment to.”

How the 2034 Olympics contract change is being seen

Others have a different view of the contract change.

Here’s how The Associated Press reported the International Olympic Committee’s July 24 decision to give the state a second Games: “What was expected to be a simple coronation of Salt Lake City as the 2034 Winter Olympic host turned into complicated Olympic politics Wednesday, as the IOC pushed Utah officials to end an FBI investigation into a suspected doping coverup.”

NPR characterized the change as a demand from the IOC, posting online, “In a shocking move on Wednesday, the International Olympic Committee moved to crush U.S. inquiries into a Chinese sports doping scandal, by threatening to reject Salt Lake City’s bid to host the Winter Games in 2034.”

A few days later, a Bloomberg opinion piece was headlined, “Salt Lake City Looks Silly Agreeing to Winter Olympics Contract,” and claimed, “Utah had leverage to push back against problematic doping-related provisions in the IOC’s contract for the 2034 Games. But officials refused to use it.”

Members of Congress are weighing in on the controversy, which escalated when the U.S. government issued a subpoena earlier in July to a Switzerland-based sports official as part of a federal investigation into allegations WADA wrongfully allowed Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance to compete.

“Why would the United States want to host Olympic Games that are dirty Games?” Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee, asked last week, according to Roll Cal l. In June, the subcommittee held a hearing into the allegations that first surfaced in April, but WADA was a no show.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., has introduced legislation that would allow the U.S. to withhold nearly $4 million in annual funding for WADA unless authorities are confident that “our athletes are on a fair and even playing field,” Roll Call reported, quoting Van Hollen as saying, “We are not going to back down in the face of blackmail.”

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox , who signed the contract on behalf of the state, told reporters in Paris that he really had no choice.

“We have agreed if the United States does not support or violates the World Anti Doping (Agency’s) rules that they can withdraw the Games from us and from the United States,” the governor said then. “That was the only way that we could guarantee that we could get the Games.”

Although the governor said Utahns “are going to be working very hard obviously with U.S. officials to make sure that doesn’t happen,” he also expressed confidence the 2034 Games aren’t going to be taken away. “I’m not worried about that. I’m 100% convinced that we can work through this,” Cox said.

The contract change was put together during nearly a week of nonstop, behind-the-scenes negotiations to deal with questions about whether the bid would be awarded as anticipated on Utah’s Pioneer Day after international sports officials expressed alarm over the federal investigation.

“Given the intense feelings around this issue from the international sports federations, the IOC — and we — thought it would be a good idea to have additional language in the host contract,” Bullock said.

What’s Sen. Mitt Romney’s role in resolving the controversy?

The new language extends the requirement that Utah’s Olympic organizers and the USOPC follow the World Anti Doping Code to the U.S. government, Bullock said, spelling out the IOC can terminate the contract “if, in any other way” the application of that code is “hindered or undermined,” or if WADA’s “supreme authority” is not respected by the host country.

But he said that’s not going to be an issue for Utah’s Games if the U.S. can bring together the two anti-doping agencies.

“If that happens, I don’t worry for a moment about something that the government will do. Because I think we will have a system that everybody supports,” Bullock said, adding, “we’re comfortable because we know the root cause is the gap between WADA and USADA, which we believe can be solved. And we hope to play a small role in that.”

So what will it take to resolve the conflict?

There have been meetings with both WADA and USADA officials in Paris, Sykes said.

“If the World Anti Doping Code can be applied more rigorously in a way that is even stronger, we think this could yield some benefit,” the USOPC leader said. ”That’s not the way either side sees it yet. We will have to take both time and a lot of imagination, and patience, for us to get there. But we believe it will be in the interest of everybody for these two organizations to see things the same way.”

Bullock said there could be some signs of progress within weeks, but acknowledged “this is a long-term issue that all parties need to address.”

He’s getting some help from a longtime colleague Utah Sen. Mitt Romney , the leader of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City that Bullock helped run as chief operating officer. Romney backs the 2020 U.S. law that extends U.S. law enforcement jurisdiction to any international sporting competitions involving American athletes or financial interests, according to his spokeswoman.

“Sen. Romney has and continues to support current U.S. law — the Rodchenkov Act — and he is engaged with the USOPC and Salt Lake City bid committee in full support of the Utah Games,” the spokeswoman said in a statement to the Deseret News. The controversial law passed in 2020 was used to launch the federal investigation into the Chinese swimmers.

Romney has already spent “a great deal of time” on the issue, Sykes said.

“He obviously has the greatest interest and the most insight into a lot of the history and the personalities and a little bit of the temper that happens in geopolitics around sport,” the USOPC leader said, adding that Romney “knows the IOC very well and they have a great deal of respect for him.”

Bullock stressed that influencing Congress is not part of the effort.

“There are not going to be any conversations with Congress,” he said. “There’s no lobbying, anything, with the law or enforcement. All conversations that are happening are focused on bridging the gap between WADA and USADA.”

A key member of Utah’s bid team, Olympic champion skier Lindsey Vonn , told the Deseret News she wasn’t expecting the controversy, but called the change to the host contract “a good thing” for sport.

“It’s kind of like a weather delay in ski racing,” Vonn said in Paris after the Utah bid presentation was followed by several IOC members airing their frustrations about the U.S. government’s investigation. “We didn’t see it coming, or at least I didn’t. But we were prepared for anything and the team did an incredible job.”

And, Vonn said, “ we got the bid . I think that is a testament to how committed all of us are in making sure this is an incredible Games. And honestly, the amendment is a good thing. I think it will probably be implemented in every contract going forward to ensure safe sport.”

The four-time Olympian who made her Olympic debut at the 2002 Winter Games as a teen said safe sport is “what we all strive for, and that is always my goal from an athlete perspective and also as a committee, to ensure that 2034 is incredible and that the Olympic spirit and the Olympic morals continue on.”

What the IOC is saying about the 2034 Winter Games being tied to the doping issue

IOC President Thomas Bach didn’t hold planned media appearances on July 24. At the IOC meeting in Paris, Bach had urged IOC members to support Utah’s bid before the vote, telling the bid team on stage, “You have nothing to do with this. It is very unfortunate. I am sorry for you and for us.”

A top IOC official later told the Deseret News he believes “everybody is comfortable” with the contract addition.

“It gives us confidence that this dialogue will be fruitful,” IOC Olympic Games Executive Director Christophe Dubi said.

“You saw the attitude of Salt Lake City. We really like it,” Dubi said. “Because this is the way to dialogue and what was expressed was support for the position of WADA.” He said both Bullock and Sykes “were extremely clear about that” and endorsed the new language.

“What you hope for is a healthy dialogue,” Dubi said. “You can qualify healthy the way you want, but at least it’s a dialogue towards a solution, or a better solution and a better situation. So as far as I am concerned, and I have seen them several times afterwards, everybody is comfortable.”

An IOC member from Spain, former NBA player Pau Gasol, raised concerns about the U.S. government’s investigation at a news conference in Paris last week.

“There’s a big issue when it comes to the ... Rodchenkov Act, and how that law has passed through Congress and the effect it could have in international sports,” Gasol said, warning, “this jeopardizes the safety of officials and people in the Olympic movement, in the sports movement,” according to the Reuters news agency.

“So this has to be addressed and this has to be resolved,” Gasol said, adding he believes Utah and the USOPC “can help solve the issue for the good of the Olympic movement” and have acknowledged they can be helpful.

“I know it might not be fair; it might not be something that any of us wanted Salt Lake City and their group to deal with,” Gasol also said, according to The Associated Press . “It’s nothing personal. It’s not that the IOC is trying to be unwelcoming or ungrateful. ... We cannot ignore this big issue that is on the table that is coming from U.S. soil.”