Salt Lake’s second chance: Awarded 2034 Olympic Games after stained 2002

The Winter Olympics will return to Salt Lake City in 2034 more than 30 years after a bribery scandal plagued the 2002 Games that graced the mountain city. Despite the clean nature of the current bid process, the International Olympic Committee has its stipulations.

The announcement from IOC President Thomas Bach on Wednesday, July 24, just days before the opening of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris , confirmed what has been speculated for months. The French Alps will host the 2030 Winter Olympics and Salt Lake will host in 2034.

But for Salt Lake City, the IOC put a clause in the contract that pressures officials, including Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, to lobby against a federal investigation into Chinese swimmers at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics , which took place in 2021 after being delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some Chinese athletes had tested positive for Trimetazidine, a banned heart medication, at a meet months before the Olympics. The World Anti-Doping Agency allowed the swimmers to compete after China's Anti-Doping Agency blamed the "extremely low" concentration of the drug on contaminated food. The Chinese swimming team took home three gold medals in Tokyo. Many of the same swimmers under scrutiny will be competing in Paris.

While the U.S. has opened its own investigation, Bach contends WADA should be the only body to investigate Olympic doping cases. Officials in Utah said they will do their part to honor that clause.

"We'll work very closely with the Department of Justice," Cox said.  "We'll work with the Senate. We'll work with the Biden administration and whatever the next administration is so that we can get a comfort level in what we're going to do to work together because the United States cannot clean up sport by itself. That's impossible. And conversely, WADA can't clean up sport by itself without countries that are willing to participate and work together."

Despite the strings, citizens of Salt Lake City gathered in the early morning hours to await the announcement and celebrate the decision.

A second chance for Salt Lake City

The bribery scandal tied to the 2002 Winter Games forced the IOC to change the way it picks host cities. Bribing IOC members at the time was a poorly kept secret for Olympic insiders, but there wasn’t a ton of proof before Salt Lake City’s corrupt bid.

"There was an IOC member from Togo; Togo doesn’t compete in the Winter Olympics," Olympic Historian David Wallechinsky told Straight Arrow News. "That didn’t matter, because the guy still voted. So they kept flying him out to Salt Lake City. Well, that wasn’t good enough, so they had to include a stopover in Paris so his wife could go shopping on the bid committee’s pocketbook. The whole thing was so ridiculous. But they got the games and that was all they cared about."

The scandal threatened the legacy of the games and the sanctity of the Olympics. Several members of the IOC were fired and Salt Lake City organizing committee leaders faced charges. In its wake, the IOC changed the drawn-out bidding process that lent itself to corruption.

Now, two panels are permanently open to talks with any cities open to hosting. And these panels can also approach cities they deem fit to host the games.

Similar to the way Salt Lake City and the French Alps were announced at the same time, when the IOC got two compelling bids for this year’s Summer Games from Paris and Los Angeles, it awarded Paris 2024 and LA the 2028 Games.

You can get more information on the history of corruption in the Olympic process here.

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