Deseret News Archives - January 25, 1995
Salt Lake City's well-orchestrated bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics remained right on schedule this week when the city was named one of four finalists for the games, joining Ostersund, Sweden; Sion, Switzerland, and Quebec.
But a nerve-wracking road still lies ahead before the final decision on the Olympics site is made June 16.
A 10-member panel from the International Olympic Committee announced the finalists at a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, where a delegation of Utahns watched and waited for the results.
Nine cities made a bid presentation at Lausanne before the committee made its decision on the finalists. The four chosen had earned strong praise in a technical report released late last year. The committee clearly leaned heavily on the report in picking the winners and dropping the other five bidders.
Gov. Mike Leavitt called being chosen as a finalist an "affirmation" of a decade of effort. As one Quebec official put it, being picked as a finalist is only like a midterm exam. The finals are still to come. And IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch emphasized that the finalists were not ranked and that all four are on the same starting line.
The final selection of a site for the 2002 Winter Olympics will be made at the June IOC meeting in Budapest, Hungary.
