Most venues are ready for the start of the Winter Games, and Adam Gray, the Salt Lake Organizing Committee’s general manager at Snowbasin, site of downhill and super-G ski races, said, “we could race today if we needed to, no question”.
SLOC chief operating officer Fraser Bullock said, “you get it completed early so your venue operations team can get on site. They can focus on how to accommodate the crowds rather than worry about construction”.
Bullock went to Australia just before the Summer Games to get a better understanding of the final frenzied days. Instead, he was surprised by a “remarkable calm” when he saw the completed facilities. “Right there, I knew we needed to change our plans. When I came back we looked at our venue completion dates and backed them up a lot earlier, in some cases as much as two months before the Games”.
Most of Salt Lake’s permanent venues were completed years ago. The Utah Olympic Oval, the Utah Olympic Park and ski areas such as Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley had experience staging World Cups or other test events.
Organizers also budgeted $100 million for temporary “fit-out” of venues. That included security screening areas, media tents, telecommunications trailers, TV sets and computers as well as concessions and other operations. “We’ve built a small city at every venue”, Bullock said.
