Tahoe plans bid for 2022 Olympic Games
Already in works for 7 years, officials set to slog through U.S., foreign bureaucracies
Tahoe's renowned physical beauty and often ideal weather may help in the region's bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.
NATHAN KENDALLPublished: Monday, February 22, 2010 at 8:03 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, February 22, 2010 at 8:03 p.m.
RENO -- About a dozen athletes based in the Reno-Tahoe area are competing at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver this February, including medalists Julia Mancuso and Shannon Bahrke.
Sending local athletes to the Games is nice, but Jon Killoran thinks he has a better idea. He wants to bring the Games to the Tahoe Basin.
“We can do this,” said Killoran, CEO of the Reno Tahoe Winter Games Coalition. “Bottom line: We can do this. ... I can't think of a better project to be involved in.”
Good thing, because Killoran may be immersed in it for the next 12 years.
The scale of Olympic politics is epic, their pace infamously slow. The International Olympic Committee already has its short list of sites for the 2018 Winter Games. Reno-Tahoe is gunning for 2022, a date that still has the ring of science fiction. The U.S. Olympic Committee is expected to select a single American site in the fall of 2013, and the IOC will choose its top prospect in 2015.
It all seems so far away, unless you are involved in the planning. “Urgency. There's a sense of urgency,” Killoran said. “You talk about 2015, but we have to put our best foot forward now.”
Reno-Tahoe, which recently enjoyed a fond, celebratory 50-year anniversary of the 1960 Games in Squaw Valley, made some previous efforts to get the Games back. Killoran's group, then headed by Jim Vanden Heuvel (who died unexpectedly two years ago at the age of 52), wanted a shot at 2018, but the USOC was too wrapped up in supporting Chicago's attempt to get the 2016 Summer Games.
The first real message of hope came Jan. 13, when Scott Blackmun, the newly appointed CEO of the USOC, revealed that his organization would consider a winter bid for 2022. He didn't mention Reno-Tahoe specifically, but his mild pronouncement sparked the Winter Games Coalition into renewed action.
Now comes the hard part. The next three to five years will be a difficult slog through the bureaucracy of national and international sports, with battles on several fronts. The coalition will have to wow the USOC, and after it the IOC, while also selling the local populace on this grand idea and simultaneously raising funds to pay for the groundwork.
Though the coalition has already been chipping away at the task for seven years, the push began in earnest last Friday when Killoran led a five-person advance party to Vancouver to observe and schmooze. The group included Nancy Cushing, widow of Alex Cushing, the man who helped shepherd the 1960 Games to Squaw Valley.
Killoran and Nevada Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, chairman of the coalition, believe their area has clear advantages over other potential U.S. sites, which are likely to include Denver and may also be joined by Boseman, Mont., and Salt Lake City.
You can start with Tahoe's renowned physical beauty, and add the possibility of ideal weather. It was 70 degrees in Reno last week, though the snow pack at Squaw Valley was reported at a robust 110 inches. Also high on the list is a huge population base within a few hours' drive — something that even Salt Lake, which wound up with a reported $76 million profit over its $3 billion budget in 2002 — could not boast.
The potential venues in the area are solid. Killoran talks about Mackay Stadium at the University of Nevada Reno and Aces Ballpark, the city's new Triple-A baseball stadium, as candidates for ceremonies. It has been said that no Northern Sierra facility has enough vertical descent to create a top-flight men's downhill ski run, but the other events should be easily accommodated at resorts on either side of the stateline.
Another important factor that should score high marks for Tahoe: hotel accommodations.
“We already have more rooms now than Rio de Janeiro has planned for the Summer Games in 2016,” said Killoran, a former TV news director who has lived in Reno for almost 30 years. “Take it out to Sacramento and you're talking about 70,000 rooms. We just did a survey three months ago. And that's not counting people opening up their houses for temporary rentals.”
Of course, opposition will emerge. The Olympic influx — estimates in Vancouver are running as high as 300,000 visitors — is certain to bring traffic, noise and litter. Even more fundamental, the coalition will have to convince environmental groups that the events won't have a lasting negative impact on the natural setting.
“I'm not sure right now if we even have the venues for the Winter Olympics,” said Carla Ennis, a member of several environmental groups in the Tahoe area. “Even though we have wonderful ski resorts, the kind of venues and infrastructure necessary for that sort of project are something that can be really, really hard on the environment. ... We have no choice but to listen. But I think the environmental community is very, very wary.”
Killoran said he is looking forward to working with groups like the League to Save Lake Tahoe and the local chapter of the Sierra Club.
“Brian Krolicki maintains that if we can't put forth a bid that is economically and environmentally sound, then we won't make a bid,” Killoran said. “I live here. I don't want a project that will damage the environment.”
Part of the appeal of staging the Olympics in your back yard is that while the guests eventually go away, the improvements made to the yard can last for decades. Projects started for the Squaw Valley Games in 1960 — such as development of the Reno airport, stretches of Interstate 80 and the Spooner Summit area at Incline Village, Nev. — remain in operation.
“That legacy continues to thrive here,” Krolicki said. “It was a transformational event 50 years ago, and we still benefit through improvements to the infrastructure, to the airport. We believe this is something that can propel us forward.”
At the Silver Peak Grill and Taproom in downtown Reno, twentysomething residents Dave Price and Jenny Hartwig recently sat at the bar for dinner and Olympic TV. Both sounded eager for a shot at the Winter Games.
“I could see Reno really boom with that,” said Hartwig, who grew up in Alameda. “There's so much to offer down here, and it would be a lot of fun.”
Price, an avid skier who works at Squaw Valley, believes Reno is in a transition stage, as the hard-hit gaming industry slowly gives way to outdoor recreation and ecotourism. He's all for it, and believes the Olympics could hasten the transformation.
“I think it has potential to be like the Denver of the West,” he said. “But we're a hell of a lot closer to way more ski resorts. You fly into Denver, and you have to drive at least an hour and a half to get to the good resorts.”
If the majority of Reno residents come to feel like Price and Hartwig do, it will make the California-Nevada Olympics a real possibility. It remains to be seen whether Jon Killoran can win them over in five years.
You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at 521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com.
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.