Salt Lake City to host 2034 Winter Games while French Alps get tentative 2030 nod

PARIS — The Winter Games will make a return visit to Salt Lake City in 2034 while the 2030 Olympics were tentatively set for the French Alps, officials said Wednesday.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and other organizing officials were in Paris this week, meeting with International Olympic Committee members and shoring up support for their bid to bring the Winter Games back to its 2002 site.

Salt Lake City had appeared to be a 2034 shoo-in for weeks, but late concerns came from the IOC, about U.S. authorities possibly not supporting the embattled World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

U.S. lawmakers had launched an investigation into alleged doping by Chinese swimmers ahead of the Tokyo games, perhaps undermining WADA’s authority.

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“The last 10 days of my life were totally unexpected,” Fraser Bullock, head of the Salt Lake City bid, told NBC affiliate KSL minutes after the vote for Salt Lake City. “We were just cruising towards the final award and then this came up and we had to address it.”

But with an 83-6 vote for Salt Lake City to host, Bullock said he believes the IOC has total confidence in 2034 organizers.

“We believe that we can make a few adjustments that will help the U.S. and world anti-doping community come together and not have disagreements,” Bullock said. “We actually believe this will be constructive.”

Each venue for 2034 already exists or will be built for temporary use, thus not saddling local taxpayers with ongoing costs or an underutilized facility, according to Bullock.

“These venues carry on the prolific 2002 legacy that continues to benefit the state of Utah and its people today,” Bullock said.

Hundreds of Utahans watched the announcement on big screen TVs at Washington Square Park and broke into wild cheers when the vote and announcement was made before dawn at 4:22 a.m. MDT.

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A cauldron was lit at Rice-Eccles Stadium at the University of Utah to mark the games’ return.

“It’s a once in a generation opportunity,” said Visit Salt Lake  President and CEO Kaitlin Eskelson. “It’s just a very exciting time and it’s going to catapult us into that global stage.”

This will mark the fifth time it’s been held on American soil. The United States previously rolled out a winter red carpet in Lake Placid (1932 and 1980) and Squaw Valley (1960) in addition to Salt Lake City (2002 and 2034).

The IOC made a conditional award to France, pending additional financial guarantees from organizers, officials said.

If France gets the games, it would be the fourth time it has hosted the Winter Olympics, following Chamonix in 1924, Grenoble in 1968 and Albertville in 1992.

Not including the Summer Olympics, which get underway in Paris this week, the sites and dates for the next five sets of games are now largely set.

• The Winter Games of 2026 are scheduled for Italy, near Milan, between Feb. 6-22.
• Los Angeles will host the Summer Games of 2028 from July 14-30. Los Angeles previously hosted the 1932 and 1984 Olympics, joining Paris and London as the only cities to host three.
• The 2030 games appear to be headed to the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur regions from Feb. 8-24 that year.
• The games go back Down Under in the summer of 2032 as Brisbane welcomes the Olympics from July 23 to Aug. 8.
• Salt Lake City is set to get its second shot at winter glory in 2034, from Feb. 10-26.

The naming of Salt Lake City and French Alps as the next two winter sites had been in the works for months, with only moderate concerns rooted in France’s snap elections.

But worries about the 2030 bid appeared to be allayed when centrist French President Emmanuel Macron and leftist parties staved off a far–right challenge.