20 year
SALT LAKE
OLYMPICS Twenty Years Later BY JENNY GOLDSBERRY
W
inter sports weren’t represented in the Olympics until 30 years after Athens’ first games in 1896. However, at the time, figure skating was a part of London’s summer games in 1908. Viewers were at first adverse to the idea of a Winter Olympics. So, when Chamonix, France, hosted them, they performed a rebranding of the winter sports. As a result, the first winter games weren’t called the Olympics, but the Chamonix International Winter Sports Week instead. Eighteen other cities hosted these Winter Olympics before Salt Lake City got the chance. Three of those cities hosted twice. The ten host countries included Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Italy, Austria, Japan, Canada, Yugoslavia, and, of course, France. America had only hosted the winter games three times before, in Squaw Valley, California,
in 1960, then in Lake Placid, New York, in 1932 and 1980. The Wasatch Front population at the time was more than eleven of the other host cities’ populations combined and then some. In addition, Salt Lake Airport had the largest airport with 21 million visitors a year in the late 90s. At the time, the airport also boasted that it was the first airport in the country to screen bags for explosives. Consequently, it also had the most hotel rooms at 35,000. So, it came as no surprise that it sold a record number of tickets: 1.6 million. According to the Utah Department of Transportation, roughly 2.2 million visitors came to the state during the Olympics. The games came to Utah 20 years ago. Some Utahns were happy to welcome them, and others not so. To commemorate the anniversary this year, this article will examine the influence the games had in our neck of the woods.
Photo by Lara Hatzell Finley
Januar y 2022 | royconnection.com 14
