Outdoors

We'll always have 1960...

1/19/10, 10:21 pm, By A. Pridgen

Really ...REALLY... we're still talking Olympic Bid ...ugh

By A. Pridgen -

Editor's note: Portions of the following column originally ran spring of 2008 (yes, we've been around that long). Now that the US is trying to 'play nice' once more with the IOC after the Chicago bid was roundly rebuffed in favor of a city famous for a giant Jesus statue, trannys in headdresses and Leo DiCaprio making out with a winged Claire Danes while the Cardigans play in the background ...there is more talk of the Winter Games' return to the Basin. To that we say: ugh.

Oh, and PS — why not start small Tahoe? See if we can maybe hold onto an XTERRA or a Dew Tour stop. How 'bout bringing 35,000 people out to a World Cup freestyle event like Deer Valley did the second weekend in January? In other words, you've got to hit for average in the minors before you get called up to the Bigs.

Let's start with the punchline:   The Winter Olympics in the Tahoe Basin is never going to happen.

Not in 2018. Not in 2022. Not ever.  To repeat: The chances of a five-ring circus and the re-birth of Tahoe as an Olympic destination are zero. Nada. None. Nilch.  Why?! Three reasons:  

1) Money — there is none. Unless Steve Wynn, David Duffield, Spock, Mike Love and Larry Ellison want to collectively cut a check for $6 billion, there is no money in California/Nevada's coffers (combined the states currently have a almost a $25 billion deficit) to host a games here.

The rationale that the money (effort-leader Nevada Lt. Governor Brian Krolicki estimates games here would cost the region $1.5 billion — way low) would be recouped through licensing, ticket sales and TV agreements is unfounded (everyone's heard NBC's projected to be $200 mil. in the hole or one-eighth of Conan's platinum parachute on the '10 games).

No Olympics (not even '08's hugely successful Bejing games) has recovered more than 1/10th of its upfront costs through pre-sale of licensing and TV rights.

2) Venue(s) — there aren't any. The winter games may have grown in stature but the mountains around the basin have not. Where would you hold a Super-G? (You need about 3,270m with a gradient of 31). Would it be an off-piste Super G on Mt. Tallac?

How bout the arenas? No, Mackay Stadium is NOT a good place to hold a winter games... Downtown Reno? Really?! — good place for ribs and Costco runs, bad place for the luge.

The ice rinks? The housing element? The training facility? The bobsled run? The ski jump? The Nordic facility?

What kind of transit system is in place to schlep a half-million people around the basin expeditiously over a two-week period? A two-laner up Mt. Rose? A stretch of 80 in constant disrepair?

Where are the trains? The buses? The light rail? The ferries?   

Reno/Tahoe International would have to build (ready) two new wings and eight new runways to be (ready) half the size of SLT/Vancouver airport capacity.  And, unless the lake drains itself, there is nary a central locale with which to create an Olympic Village; and no, the Nugget/downtown Sparks is not the answer. Here's what SLC built to get its games in '02: 

• The Utah Olympic Oval (Kearns)  

• Five ice sheets (Provo, Ogden, Logan, and two in Salt Lake City)  

• Soldier Hollow (about a half hour from Park City)

 • The Utah Olympic Park

Construction of these ran up a tab for US taxpayers of about $1.3 billion. Adjust that for inflation 20 years later and you're looking at just under $4 billion. $4 billion in taxpayer money to build brand-new winter game venues with used-once venues (plus the US Center for Excellence for winter athletes) only 6 hours away by car?!

3) SLC and Vancouver ... not to mention other existing in-tact venues: After the SLC games were deemed a fiscal win for Utah, officials immediately threw their names in the hat for a second go-around. After all, the reputation, infrastructure and legislative support is already in place.

Unfortunately for Utah part deux, SLC had to get in line behind Vancouver. The IOC has since acknowledged hosting the Olympics (especially winter games — traditionally a smaller draw) is such a tremendous fiscal (and physical) undertaking that the goal is to winnow down the number of qualifying cities two three or four.

A Lake Placid redux is also on the IOC short list — as is Torino, Lillehammer, Nagano and Innsbruck. An argument could be made that erstwhile host Squaw could be up there if nostalgia was the only criteria. But literally none of the Olympic venues this side of the torch exist in Olympic Valley.

The only man with the political clout and background to get it done in the West (Romney) already has weathered the scandal storm for Utah (payouts to the IOC which originally soured the committees' relationship with the US).

To watch Krolicki grandstanding (again) about how the Basin is Olympic-worthy is almost as frightening as his pseudo-stalkerish 'blog' about Sarah Palin during the '08 GOP convention — but that's a different story.

He might as well be saying he's found a cure for cancer, only he needs more money, more time to research before he announces what it is.

Back in 2008, we said Tahoe getting an Olympic 'bid' (our direct quote: 'by late-2009 — Tahoe won't even have filled out the necessary paperwork — guaranteed' hardy har) wasn't going to happen, but the notion was seemingly harmless.

To be sure though, there is money involved. The Reno/Tahoe 'bid' is a virulent campaign to shift the spotlight away from the real issues faced by the state and region on the back of nostalgia from Squaw's 1960 games. The '05 Nevada Legislature apportioned $125,000 a year to bring the Olympics here. That's a half million dollars (and counting) for something that just isn't gonna happen.

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