A total of 332 delegates representing Utah government, venues, ski areas, security forces and Organizing Committee members attended the Games in Nagano to get an idea of what to expect and how to focus their efforts over the next four years. Caroline Shaw, director of media relations for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC) says the staff members have already prepared detailed observation reports. The Nagano Games “were an incredible experience for everyone,” says Shaw, attributing this success to the flexibility of the Nagano Organizing Committee when faced with weather problems, and the warm hospitality of the Olympic volunteers. “We’d like,” she says somewhat doubtfully, “to have the same hospitality from our volunteers.”
Mark Keeney is the race department manager at the Deer Valley Resort, which will host the mogul competition, aerial events and slalom races on Bald Eagle Mountain. As SLOCs slalom chief of course, Keeney went to Nagano for nine days. Although SLOC encouraged him to take notes everywhere he went, Keeney found it most useful to enjoy the events and take notes in the form of photos. Twelve rolls of film later, he agrees that the Nagano “volunteer effort was overwhelming in sheer numbers of people and their enthusiasm and dedication.”
“I wouldn’t want to have the weather they had,” Keeney says, but he points out that during the week he was in Japan, record amounts of snow fell in Utah, enough to close the Salt Lake airport for the first time in 25 years. The lesson Keeney takes from this is that there needs to be not only “plan B in case of bad weather, but plan C and plan D, too.”
Keeney says that Deer Valley is currently in the design phase for its Olympic venue. The Organizing Committee provides a design team of architects and contractors as well as FIS experts. Right now, only the aerial run is still in question. The other runs are in place and require little modification.
In fact, almost all the 2002 Olympic venues are already up and running. While some ski runs still need to have snowmaking added, all of the arenas except one (the Provo Ice Sheet for hockey), are currently in use.
Gordon Strachan is a lawyer in Park City (which hosts 40 percent of events) and an SLOC board member. A veteran of four Olympic Games (including Lillehammer and Albertville), he characterizes the Nagano Games as “unbelievable. If there was a mean or nasty person in the whole country, they must’ve been shipped off to North Korea.”
Strachan’s experiences at so many previous Olympics allow him to find broader lessons from Nagano. First of all he notes “life will not be normal here for those 16 days.” He advises locals to get into the Olympic program and enjoy spending time with all the friends and relatives who will be sleeping in the living room. He also counters the pervasive rumor that tickets are impossible to get, saying that he has always been able to get tickets, even on the same day as an event.
Strachan preferred some aspects of the Lillehammer games over those in Nagano. For example, the Japanese used uniformed guards to provide information and direction to tourists, while at Lillehammer college students were used. Strachan that believes the Lillehammer look would suit Utah better than uniformed, police-style hosts.
Shaw, Keeney and Strachan all admitted that skier days were down at previous hosts of Winter Games. Strachan remembers that “people stayed away from Albertville in droves.” SLOC, as well as the resorts, realize that intensive marketing will be necessary to assure skiers that resorts will be open and that reservations will be available.
Strachan says SLOC’s planning is well underway, but “the best thing was that we didn’t win the ’98 Olympics. We need the four more years.”
