Another Reason I Hope the Olympics Don’t Come Back to Utah…

Every once in a while, we’ll hear the idea pop-up again that Salt Lake should host the 2026 Winter Olympics. Personally, I’ve never been much of a fan the idea. I think it brings a ton of people in to crush Park City.Would we likely get a $700 million Light Rail up Parley’s? Sure. Is that worth the construction, build-out, the transportation nightmares, etc? I suppose it depends if you work in construction, have a tourist related business, etc. So, I could see why some people would be excited about it, but not me.

In today’s New York Times there was an article entitled, Russian Insider Says State-Run Doping Fueled Olympic Gold. It talks about how the Russian Government succeeded in providing performance enhancing drugs to its athletes that then contributed to them winning Olympic Gold… lot’s and lot’s of Olympic Gold. And you have to be certain the Russians aren’t the only ones doping.

The more and more I hear about the Olympics, it just seems corrupt. Salt Lake even was part of that corruption in the run up to the 2002 Olympics. Why do we want to be part of that ongoing corruption that seems to follow this circus? Do we really want an Olympics in Utah to show the world our beautiful locale or do we want an Olympics to feed the pocketbooks of powerful Utahns.

Yes. I’m cynical… but I’ll be on the latter.