Salt Lake City has advanced a new pawn in its bid for the Winter Games. Representatives of the capital of Utah, in the United States, spoke on Monday, December 6 with Thomas Bach. Due to the health crisis, the interview took place remotely, by videoconference. It was initially planned in person, with an American delegation having to travel to Lausanne. The exchange between the two parties lasted more than two hours, but Thomas Bach only attended the first thirty minutes. On the American side, the three interlocutors were Catherine Raney Norman, the president of the bid committee, Erin Mendenhall, the mayor of Salt Lake City, and Fraser Bullock, the general director of the bid. According to Catherine Raney Norman, the exchange was “ positive and productive“. They always are. “ This is truly a new step in the process of building a possible candidacy.“insisted Fraser Bullock. The telephone meeting will be followed next February by the visit of a delegation from Salt Lake City to Beijing, during the 2022 Winter Games. The next step should normally see the leaders of the American project go to Lausanne, in spring 2022 , for a series of meetings at the IOC headquarters. There remains one question, still unanswered: will the capital of Utah be a candidate for the Winter Games in 2030, or will it wait for the 2034 edition, so as not to find itself in commercial competition with the Los Angeles 2028 Games? At this stage of the process, the Americans have not yet officially decided. The exchange with the IOC on Monday December 6, and the meetings planned in Beijing in February, then in Lausanne in the spring, should provide the answer.
“So we are preparing full speed ahead to be ready when that door opens, because we never know when it will open and it could open at any time. »
