This past weekend, Jill and Producer Ben found herself in Salt Lake City for a few days, which gave her the opportunity to visit some of the Salt Lake City 2002 venues to see how the legacy of those Games continues on.
In this episode, hear what it’s like at Utah Olympic Park, home of the 2002 ski jumping, Nordic combined and sliding competitions. Currently, the park is a training and competition site, with a learn to ski program for kids. It also has a number of additional activities, including summer and winter bobsled rides, guided tours, zip lines, and trails for mountain biking. The facility also houses the Alf Engen Ski Museum and Eccles Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games Museum.
Jill and Ben explored the museums and took the tour, learning some fascinating details that Jill gets into during the episode.
Jill also had an opportunity to visit Rice-Eccles Stadium, venue for the Olympic and Paralympic Opening Ceremony and the Olympic Closing Ceremony. A plaza at the stadium, complete with the cauldron, tells the story of these Games and honors the athletes who competed at them.
With so many venues still in use, it’s easy to see how well-prepared the Salt Lake Organizing Committee already is for the 2034 Games. Plus, an NHL hockey team just came to town, making a winter sports town even more winter sports happy.
Also on this episode, Milano Cortina 2026 has released its ticket prices, and the teams for the men’s ice hockey tournament are set–pending a decision on whether the International Ice Hockey Federation will allow Russia to compete. Plus we have news from TKFLASTANIs Grace Norman, Katie Moon, Monica Quimby, and Listener Dan.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
Photo: Jill Jaracz
TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
362-The Legacy of Salt Lake City 2002
Theme Music
Jill: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. If you love the games, we are the show for you. Each week we share stories from athletes and people behind the scenes to help you have more fun watching the games. I’m your host, Jill Jaris, joined as always by my lovely co host, Alison Brown.
Alison, hello. How are you?
Alison: Hello. I sent this to you, but I need to repost it on our Instagram account because it was a little video about trying to get out of the Paris metro station. And how difficult it is when you get off your train to get out. And it took me right back there, like sortie, sortie. So it still feels like so long ago.
And yet I saw that video and I immediately. In my head went to sortie, sort of interdite, you know, I got in so much trouble in those metro stations.
Jill: Yeah, they, I mean, they were tough and also the walking up the stairs, walking down the stairs to walk back up the stairs there was one. Metro station near our 2nd hotel, where, I mean, I was going into looking for exit 18 or 19.
I mean, that’s how many exits there were in this, station, but you had to go through. Other train platforms to get to the right sortie kind of thing, which was pretty amazing. And it, that, that particular station had like three different neighborhoods intersected. It was like, do you want to go to this sector or this sector or this sector?
It was like, Oh my gosh, how big is this thing? I just want to
Alison: get out!
Jill: You know, it’s,
Alison: when you look back at it, it’s honestly a miracle we made it home.
Jill: Well, it makes you understand how the Phantom of the Opera existed on the boat underneath, or how Quasimodo is in the Tower of Notre Dame. And
Alison: nobody knew about it, he just was there.
Jill Explores Salt Lake City
Jill: Right? speaking of just there, I just got home from Salt Lake City. Yes, so you’ve been a little travel bug. I have been a little, little travel bug. I was home for a couple weeks and then, uh, went to visit some family and then, producer Ben had a conference in Salt Lake City and he said, why don’t you come along?
So I did. You
Alison: said Olympic City?
Jill: Okay. Twist my arm. Right. And so the last time I was in. Salt Lake City was 2014 and I was there for a roller derby tournament. So I don’t remember a ton from there except for I was in a convention center all weekend long and
Alison: you probably remember more from your trip during the Olympics than that more recent trip.
Jill: Exactly. Cause I didn’t do much in Salt Lake so this was kind of nice to get back to seeing what the city was like. Salt Lake City. End. With the eye of thinking of what it’s going to be like for 2034, and I tell you, it’s kind of like Lake Placid in that there’s little elements of the games all over the place.
You come out of the airport, you see that Holberman arch, which was the focal point from the metals plaza. And it has a story that I just looked up, it’s been restored. It got reinstated. in August 23. In this wonderful article by Blake Apgar in the Salt Lake Tribune, after the games, the arch, which was downtown, basically in Olympic Metals Plaza, they put it at Rice Eccles Stadium at the University of Utah, which is where the opening and closing ceremonies were.
2014, the university goes, take it back.
Alison: We don’t
Jill: want it
Alison: anymore. Was it expensive to maintain? Was
Jill: that the problem? I
Alison: don’t it just in the way?
Jill: But it’s huge. So it might have been in the way or they wanted to do something else or maybe needed some parking. Who knows? So the city took it back. They took it apart.
They put it in an impound lot. A year later, thieves stole some of it. So they put it into an undisclosed location and around the beginning of 22, they started restoring it. And that was a 3. 8 million dollar project took 18 months to finish paid for by airport revenues. So the airport has been undergoing this huge expansion.
They’re not done, but I don’t remember the airport being very big when I was there in 2014. And this time we had to walk under this super long tunnel. To get from one terminal back out to the, to the rest of the place. Sortie. Sortie, indeed. And it’s very cute because they said, Hey, you need 10, 000 steps a day.
We’re just helping you get those. That’s on the tunnel wall. That sounds so Utah. We’re just trying to help you out here a little. So As you’re driving out of the airport, because we did rent a car, you cannot miss this because it is at the exit. It is 72 feet wide, 36 feet tall. There’s 4, 000 individual pieces in this magnificent piece of architecture.
Weighs 31, 000 pounds. The original had moving pieces, so I guess it looked like an eye opening and closing, but those have been fixed so that Drivers aren’t distracted when they come out.
Alison: Okay. That would be terrifying. The giant arch is blinking at you.
Jill: Right. And I could not get a picture of this cause we’re in a car and we’re trying to figure out where we’re going along with, then all of a sudden the arch is there and we’re like, Whoa, arch.
and then you’re all of a sudden past it, but it was really cool to see. It looks beautiful. Driving around Legacy is visible because on a lot of the streetlight signs, There are, uh, 2002 logos attached next to the street names. You’ll see random manhole covers. You’ll see, um, parking meters that have signs and, and obviously this parking meter that we did see one day said, Oh, you know, home of 2002, hopefully 2034, they’re ready to go at the parking meters.
Alison: Oh, that was one of the big things with that, bid. We’re ready to go. Even the parking meters are ready to go.
Jill: There are apparently different. Monuments, I happen to pick up the Salt Lake, city weekly while I was there and it said, the most notable things that you can see are a series of large sandstones that are placed at seemingly seemingly random spots, like near the 15th and 15th commercial area and the ballpark playground at West Temple and Van Buren Avenue.
I did not get to see those, but those are around. I did, we did go out to Great Salt Lake State Park and there is a random concrete thing. With, uh, a pole attaches, it looks like it has lights on it now, but maybe it had a flag in it because listener Nick also posted stuff like that in our Facebook group and same with listener Don, and it’s got.
Salt Lake City 2002 implanted or imprinted in the concrete. Base thing, so it’s just like random stuff everywhere you turn is is more Olympic things, which is really cool. we did go out to Utah Olympic park in park city. This is where you can do , the ski jump and sliding were there, and they put a ski museum and a games museum in there as well.
So the museums are free. , you can take a tour for 20 bucks a person or an adult. And that is about an hour long and they bus you to the east. You start doing a tour, , an overview of what the different sleds are. So they’ll show, they had the bobsled, the luge was actually out. That day it was needs to be fixed and then he had a skeleton that he showed and I don’t know why I didn’t realize this when we talked to skeleton with several people.
I thought skeletons had runners and when they talked about steels for for the skeleton, they’re like tubes and they have a little dimple in them. So they’re not blades that you sharpen. Right.
Alison: Oh, well, well, well,
Jill: that’s why skeleton is not as fast as luge or bobsled
Alison: because there’s no blade
Jill: Right, per se.
Alison: Right.
Jill: It’s
Alison: not cutting into the ice. It’s kind of riding.
Jill: Correct. It’s riding on top of it.
Alison: Okay. Bree Walker. Well, , well, not well.
Jill: Uh Brendan A. J.
Alison: Alderman We gotta talk to all our sliders again now. Yeah,
Jill: right? Wait a second.
We are confused about this. Yes, you said steels, we just went to blades. So now that’s something else to put on the list. they’ve got a pool there like they had in, Lake Placid, where the different, uh, freestyle jumps can practice. But you actually saw a practice. We did see practice.
That was really nice. Brian, our tour guide said that the pool gets used a lot and not just by national members, like kids who are learning how to do stuff, they’ll learn how to jump in the pool. The legacy foundation that’s 2002 helps make that somewhat affordable. Cool. We didn’t get into exact dollars, but that, he’s like, yeah, it’s a little more affordable to get to start because the foundation covers some of it.
Alison: Okay, what are they wearing when they practice in the pool? They have
Jill: swimsuits and wetsuits on. They had wetsuits for us. I don’t know if during the summer that they don’t put wetsuits on because it might be a little chilly
Alison: to hit the pool at this point.
Jill: Yes. So they have multiple ramps. So there’s an area one, there’s moguls, there’s freestyle, there’s, different heights if you want to do a double jump or a triple jump.
And then what happens is they’ll wet the carpet of the pool. ramp, then they turn bubbles on in the area of where the slide is going to end. So it’s not the whole pool, but the whole pool has jets underneath it. And so there’s somebody in a control room who’s watching and when the, skier is ready to take off, they turn the jets on and that’s when you know somebody else is going to come out.
What are the jets for? Breaks the surface tension of the water. So it’s easier to land. Oh, that’s cool. Yes. Yes. So, we saw a lot of kids jump. We saw some tough looking jumps, and we also saw some very cool ones. So I’ve put a few videos up, I think on my personal Instagram feed. We’ll get some more videos up and, and maybe you’ll see them on our YouTube channel because I, I did take a bunch and we’ll have some shorts.
And that was really, really cool. The other thing they had going on was, they had a huge inflatable jump. That snowboarders were going down and because the snowboard is bigger than skis, they displace more water. It makes it harder to jump into the water pool. So they will jump onto a huge inflatable bag.
Um, but the, elements are still the same. They will spray down the bag and then that’s like when you see the, the sprinklers going, you know, that’s when somebody is getting ready to jump because it dries pretty quick too. It was really sunny that day. So it dried really quick.
Alison: And I would think Salt Lake, Salt Lake City, then up in the mountains, it’s just dry.
The air is dry. So the water just sucks it right out of that. Yes, exactly.
Jill: I did ask, like. How trying to get at the idea of how much can your body take of these jumps and Brian our tour guide said that national team athletes will do like a hundred jumps a week Wow So it’s significant into the pool.
Alison: That’s a lot of jump. Yeah.
Jill: Yeah, so it’s good It helps them practice all year round, which is nice Then we went over to The sliding track, Brian did call it a hillbilly track.
Alison: What
Jill: does
Alison: that mean? I saw you put that
Jill: in the notes. What does that mean? That means that it was kind of done open. The whole track is open and they’ve had to put like temporary roof on top of some of it and they have curtains that will cover some of it so the sun doesn’t get on and melt it too much because most bobsled tracks are pretty much roofed nowadays.
Alison: But that
Jill: wasn’t, was that the case in 2002? I don’t think so. No, it wasn’t that, and they found that out because they kind of put it together. And then, like, let’s have a games, let’s get this thing done. We’ll, do what we can. And then they found out, Hey, this is what it does. It takes two to three weeks to put the track in place because they have, an ammonia building.
Basically they put ammonia on under the track and then coat it with water, I believe. And then it freezes because the ammonia is underneath the track. The track crew has to grade this by hand. Yes. So they get out and. They’ve got their little clampy shoes on and they go in and they grade everything by hand to get it right.
That must take
Alison: forever. It And they must have the coolest calipers and measuring tools to get that right. I don’t know if you know the answer to this. We are using the same track in Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is So are they planning to put a permanent roof? Yes, that is part of the rebuild.
Jill: Yes, part of the, he, I think he talked about 40 million being put in to do upgrades.
And one of the things they want to do is put a roof on so that will make it more stable as a track. The ice will be more stable and it’ll just make it easier, I think, to maintain as well. There is a safety loop if your brakes fail on a bobsled, because you know how they, they stop and they break and it kind of ends.
Well, if those brakes fail, there’s a whole loop that they can go around and around and around until the, so the sled stops. They’ve never had to use it.
Alison: Well, that’s reassuring. It’s like when you drive in the mountains and you see those, those stony pull offs for the trucks. Yes.
Jill: Yes, exactly. So this is a
Alison: stony pull off for the bobsled.
Can you imagine you’re in the, you’re racing a bobsled and it won’t stop? I cannot imagine. Because so much of what they do is muscle memory. And then to have to switch onto thinking suddenly, we’ll have to find a bobsled guy that that’s happened to. That’s had to happen to, I mean, they wouldn’t have it if it didn’t happen.
Jill: Exactly. Exactly. Brian said something about Jeff Bodine, the NASCAR racer, coming out of retirement to help build bobsleds. Well, that makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? Yes. Because a lot of auto racing technology comes over to bobsled. I have so many things that went on the list. To be quite honest, because another fun fact that he said was apparently BMW, I put in, I put in the words, apparently, Brian said, Oh, BMW makes all of Germany sleds pro bono.
Alison: Well, we knew BMW was very involved. Yes. The development of bobsleds. That’s not new information. Yes. But they build them for free. For the German team as a whole other dimension to that German dominance, right? Because not only do you have these incredible engineers, but then you can afford it because it’s
Jill: free.
Yes. So we went up and you saw where the loose start is a loose starts a little different. Area because of course it’s a different starting mechanism that since they have the handles that they go down there. The start track on their portion is narrower than the Bob slack Bob sled and a skeleton track.
and then another fun fact, Jill Bakken and Vanetta flowers were the 1st. 2 women gold medalist because 2002 is the 1st time that women got to Bob sled in the Olympics. Apparently, Vanetta flowers was pregnant with twins. At the time. That she won the gold medal. So it was a four man bobsled
Theme Music: without anybody
Jill: knowing it.
Right? Because she absolutely would not say she was pregnant. Oh no. She
Alison: was not giving up that.
Jill: No.
Alison: Spot.
Jill: No. So. It kind of worked out for her. It did. So, on the list, again. more things to do. We went over to the Nordic jumps, the ski jumps. So that was a ski jump for ski jumping, obviously. And then also for the Nordic combined competition, they have six different jumps there.
So you can start learning how to ski jump at the 10 meter, then 20 meter. Yeah, I know you’re there. Cause Ben, Ben did ask, Hey, would you still learn ski jumping? Like, yeah, maybe, I bet Alison would still do it.
Alison: I would absolutely do it. Of course, there is that slight problem that I have had skis on my feet twice in my life.
I
Jill: don’t think it matters. 40, 64 meters, 90, and 120, which were the competition hills for Salt Lake City. This is the highest Ski jumping track, I believe at the it’s 73 50 feet over above sea level They have some sort of mini Zamboni that goes down the track to coat the ice which again on the list
Alison: So this is an actual ice ramp because we’ve had a lot of the the newer ramps that Just have the, the track, which almost, yes, this is a full
Jill: blown
Alison: ice track.
Okay. Old school.
Jill: Yes. And then for 2034, there’s some design flaws in the hill that they want to fix and they will add refrigeration to it. There’s also something called the Gold Mile Challenge that was in 2002. This was a spectator event. Which we are going to talk about in the Patreon show this month So if you were a five dollar a month patron and above you will hear that and one other story that I found was interesting And if you would like to get in on that bonus content, go to patreon. com slash flame alive pod, and you can sign up there. It was a little mind blowing.
I will tell you what this gold mile challenge was, So that was basically it. The, the museum is quite nice. It’s the 2nd floor of the main building. The, the ski museum is the 1st floor, but there’s Olympic elements to the ski museum. They also have a. Virtual bobsled run there that you can do any virtual ski jump that you can do as well.
We saw some people do the ski jump and they did not fare so well on their first because, because the, like, you stand on a couple of ski looking things and they actually move. So you have to get your balance right in order to land properly the during the summer. They have a summer bobsled experience during the winter.
It will turn into a winter bobsled experience that you can take as a, just a regular average person. Those were not open. We were there in the sweet spot between winter and summer time. The shoulder season. Yeah, exactly. But there, There’s a ton of stuff to do. They have a zipline somewhere there.
There’s obviously skiing is there as well, but it was a really really cool park. Other stuff in the museum had a torch that you could take your picture with. They had a little video with Bob Costas doing highlights of the opening ceremony. I may have cried for the lighting of the, the cauldron.
Alison: Well, that was, I mean, come on,
Jill: that was a good Salt Lake City
Alison: lighting of the cauldron was for certainly people of our generation.
Jill: Yes,
Alison: that’s, that’s a biggie.
Jill: And if you are not aware of listeners, this was the 1980 us men’s hockey team who won the miracle on ice game against the Soviet union at Lake Placid, 1980. Michael Roussioni comes out. As captain with the torch, and then he brings the rest of the team in much like it was on the podium.
See, I see you getting misty eyed already.
Alison: And also, I think what we also need to kind of put in context for people who don’t remember Salt Lake City was this was mere months after 9 11. Yes, so the whole atmosphere in the country and with this event was extremely emotional and then they break out the miracle on ice team.
Yes, all of us who remember that. talk about having a perfect cauldron lighting, right? It was to have the right person. I mean, that goes back to the Muhammad Ali in Atlanta, you know, they have, they’ve, there’ve been some real perfect ones.
Jill: Yes.
Alison: And that was, that was one of the perfect ones.
Jill: And even the leading up to the cauldron lighting because they had that ice ribbon. So all of those ice, the iconic ice skaters throughout U. S. history came out and, uh, Skated with the Hamill and Dick Button and Peggy Fleming and Scott Hamilton together. It was just beautiful. They had a little display dedicated to every sport.
So there were things you could see. the displaying of uniforms was really cool because they had them in small triangular. Display cases that were glass so you could be on either side of the case pretty easily and see, uh, more of the uniform, producer Ben did complain that there was not enough by Athlon.
They just said that only I know Bjorn Dahlin won everything. Come on.
Alison: Well, because that’s all there is to say about Salt Lake City and by Athlon was here. Nobody else needed to show up.
Jill: And let’s be honest. The biathlon display was no bigger or smaller than any other sport, so it was just being fussy.
They have a curling stone you can pick up. Really? Mm hmm.
Alison: How is that?
Jill: Heavy. Heavy.
they also have a little bit of Paralympic displays. Salt Lake City was the first organization, apparently the first games, to have one organizing committee do both games. So, this is another step along the lines of the two associations working together in a different way than they had before.
they did have a fair amount on the Paralympics, not as much because the Paralympics were pretty tiny,
Alison: but it was
Jill: I mean, the Winter Paralympics now are
Alison: still small. Yes. So 20 Yeah, yeah. Two years ago, it was even, it was even smaller.
Jill: And, uh, big display of pins. That was really cool. They had the Yeah.
Uh, kind of a shadow box of the logo and pins all in there and it was, they had a little scavenger hunt of, do you find the jello pin? Do you find this pin? Do you find the April Fool’s pin? Very, very cool display. They also had elements The jello
Alison: pin? Wait, wait, wait, you just breezed over that one.
Jill: Oh, because Jell O is like the state dessert.
I know it is! Yes!
Alison: Utah loves its Jell O, so they had a Jell O pin? Yes! Did it jiggle and wiggle?
Jill: Well, it was green. Lime green. It did not jiggle.
Alison: That’s disappointing. I wanted to see it jiggle, see it wiggle. Cool and fruity. Jell O brand gelatin.
Jill: Well, now you have a dream for 2034.
Alison: Make me a jiggling, wiggling, Um,
Jill: they did have elements from the opening ceremonies still there.
So do you remember they were giant animals in the main performance part? And this is also kind of around the time that the Lion King came out. Yes. So you have those puppets and that were manipulated by people who were also dancing. So they were the puppet.
Alison: Right, where it was like they were attached, not attached by poles, but they had sort of like marionette poles, but they were underneath and inside.
Jill: Yes. Yes. So they had a few of those there. They had this giant bison head mounted on the, on the wall. That was really, really cool. I’m like, Oh, it’s nice that you still had these elements. They had, there was a Native American. element to the opening ceremony. So they had some of the instruments and, uh, costumes from that there.
They had these giant coal, copper and powder mascots up on the shelf. None for sale in the gift shop, sadly. Really? Yeah, they didn’t have anything. They had stuff that was Olympic, but nothing from 2002. And I wonder if. They’re not allowed to make any merchandise. Yeah, that could be. I don’t know who owns that.
Who owns
Alison: the intellectual property and who owns the trademarks and the copyrights on all of that. And is it elapsed and is it. Yeah, right. You can’t use that. Because it seems like mascots would be such an easy sell.
Jill: Yeah. Sadly. But that was, it was a very cool visit, I will say. We did not go over to Soldier Hollow, that was a little bit a ways.
We did go downtown to Park City. Which I don’t know what they’re going to do for 2034 because that’s a tiny the historic downtown area is tiny and Crowded and this was shoulder season. I cannot imagine what it’s like there for Sundance I cannot imagine what it’s like there during ski season because This was literally you could park the car in the garage Go to the ski rental place and hop right onto the the chair to go up the lift You Because they were right there among the buildings.
It was just so tiny. But that’s also, uh, as we’re walking down it, I did see the area where they had some Coca Cola pin trading, in this little tiny little plaza area. So that was kind of cool to see. It was very cute, I will say that. Very cute area. Probably so bustling and exciting during 2002. We did not go to Soldier Hollow.
This was also a trip where we found out a lot of cool stuff happened after We found it like, oh, there was racing that day we could have. We missed that. We missed some other stuff as well, but soldier hollow still is a Nordic center and it has cross country skiing and biathlon stuff. You can do a biathlon experience there and.
Do in the summer, you can probably roller ski. You can also do some shooting with, uh, instruction there as well. The Olympic oval is in Carnes, which is, uh, we didn’t go over there, but that is still obviously in use by the U S, speed skating team and public can skate there as well. So there’s a lot of stuff going on that is still in place, not just for training, but also for, public use, which is really, really nice.
There is a, Residential dorm right at Utah Olympic Park. So if you were an athlete. And I don’t know who else, but athletes can stay there and train for a little bit of time. Brian, our tour guide said that, athletes from other countries also come into trains. So like China will come in to train for bobsled, Korea will come in to train for bobsled and they’ll have that kind of income coming in as well throughout the season.
Also went to the Olympic and Paralympic Cauldron Plaza, which is at Rice Eccles Stadium. If you go, take the tracks, light rail, do not park, because you will get a parking trick. You might get a parking ticket, like I have, and am appealing. Because it’s no joke, they have a tiered parking, if you pay it quickly, you pay less.
But the parking ticket’s 90 bucks. And I was like, it’s fall break. Nobody’s parked here.
Alison: They gotta make some money somewhere, Jill.
Jill: I guess, not off of me. Appeal. Appeal. But they have the cauldron there, they have the rings, they have the agitos, they have a whole bunch of displays that go over a little bit on getting the games, the, the Aspect of 9 11 impacting everything, how the games were a lot of us centric stuff, because it was a very good games for the U.
- but they also had the names of all of the participants. So they had the U. S. Olympic and Paralympic team named out, but then they had the other Olympians and Paralympians to on just their names etched in these big stone, Tablets, I guess you would say flags from all the countries just mounted on the wall kind of thing.
And then they have a mock up of a podium, not it’s, it’s off one surface that has gold, silver, bronze on it, but it looks like, oh, here’s the podium here, mountains painted in gold, silver and bronze in the background. It’s very cool. So that’s a nice place to spend a few minutes.
Alison: Don’t park, but not too long.
Jill: Well, yeah, not too long. So it’s also doesn’t take that long to go through. So that’s that’s a lot of fun. I did do some research. I was at the archives at the U of U J. W. Marriott Library, who has the papers for 2020. O2, the Olympics, Paralympics, not fully processed.
Alison: That surprises me a little bit.
Jill: Does not surprise me. I
Alison: mean, on the one hand, it doesn’t surprise me because it takes years to process all of these materials. And depending on, you know, but it’s at a university. This is like the. Do you know how many grad students could do their thesis on processing this material?
Jill: It’s true, but they have other stuff too.
So I would say I don’t, I don’t know all of their special collections, but there were other researchers researching not Olympic stuff. when I made my request to, uh, cause I had to set up an appointment and everything and, and she, the, the lovely librarian helping me out said, well, we recommend just like start with six boxes.
Cause there’s a lot of stuff. So here’s, here’s a list of everything we have in, cause I wanted to focus on some Paralympic research. And she gave me. A long, long list of files that they had pulled six boxes and, and they did mean bankers boxes with folder upon folder upon folder of presentations and all of this stuff.
the fun elements I found that stick out to me, cause I kind of wanted to know how these games were focused. Ice ledge racing was supposed to be at 2002 was not there because of. I eventually found out it was lack of participation, so I could not figure out where else there would be information about that and the discussions about things, but I kind of saw where it was in the timeline.
So it was out by maybe 2000. But it was definitely in, in like 1999, so. And that seems to be
Alison: where that transition happened. Yes. Where that, where sledge racing just falls off the Paralympic program and we don’t see it anymore. Yes. Which is sad because it’s something that we really would love to see. Yes,
Jill: so I will keep working on that element.
I also, I only had a two hour appointment to go through six boxes that turned into a four hour appointment until the poor woman at the desk was like, um, we close at four.
Oh, let me get through this last box. Too sweet. Went through that as fast as I could. So I have a million pictures that I need to go through. I took a whole bunch of notes. And I just have to go through all that stuff and see what I see in terms of stories. I did find one completely random file that was marked Rotary.
And I said, what is this? And it was a very interesting surprise. That’s also a story for patrons, and I think it was a surprise for the organizing committee when they first got it as well. So, uh, that will be coming as well. Something else that could have been at Salt Lake City. And this was a email conversation that I saw with, uh.
Salt Lake organizers and Torino organizers, because there were emails going back and forth, because Torino was like, how do we work with this and the interest of sharing information? What can you tell us? And there were Uh, response back that was a little more, I’ll find the right words. I’ll find the, the, the exact wording.
Cause it was a, here’s how to work with the IPC. Oh yeah. Kind of element. And it’s talked about. Knowing what was in the IPC handbook at the time, and I don’t know what this document is, and you had to, you had to know what year of the handbook you’re working under because wheelchair dance was also apparently A sport that could have been in the winter Paralympics, but it was not in the handbook and not in the contract of Salt Lake City 2002.
So, it was a warning to 2006, look for this is it in your contract kind of thing. Is it in the handbook? Is it in the contract? Are you putting the sport on or not? Also very interesting.
Alison: That is very interesting in that, you know, we think of the sports and the sport program. As being obvious in a way or not big surprises, you know, even when, when the Olympics come out with the sport program, yes, there’s always like one or two like, Oh, is boxing in or Oh, did they put, but not entire sport categories that just surprise you.
Jill: Right. Cause I had no idea that wheelchair dance was an element of the winter Paralympics.
Alison: I don’t even know where to start. Like, wheelchair dance in what form are we talking about? What does that mean? So,
Jill: another mystery to unravel. We’ll find out at some point. But it was a lot of fun to be able to go through all of that stuff that I did.
Thank you to the wonderful librarians at the Marriott Library for helping me out. We’ll see me again. I’m sure
Alison: she’s moving into that dormitory. That’s awkward for the athletes. She’s a research Olympian.
Jill: That’s right. That’s right. So yeah, Salt Lake City. Very, very cool. I believe it when they say they’re pretty much ready.
For 2034. It’s 10 years. Most of the stuff is in place. They have to make slope. I don’t think they have to build them for scratch because I think they have cross races in that area of Utah anyway. So it’s just kind of upgrading stuff and then building, The hockey team is out there now. They have, Salt Lake City has a hockey team, pro hockey team.
Utah
Alison: Hockey Club.
Jill: Do you know why it’s Utah Hockey Club?
Alison: I don’t. I don’t watch a lot of pro hockey anymore. So is it because they just didn’t come up with the name yet?
Jill: Not yet. That’s year two. The mascot name will be year two because they found out like at the end of last season that it’s the former Arizona team that got moved to Utah in a big kind of owner dispute and stadium dispute, very long, very long article on ESPN.
That was very, very good. But basically the NHL said, Arizona, your plans for a new stadium are not coming to fruition. It’s been years. We are decommissioning the Arizona Coyotes. You, owner, will keep the intellectual property for the Arizona Coyotes. We will move the team to Utah. And if the owner can get a stadium built, you can recommission the Coyotes.
So that is why we have no Utah hockey. It was fascinating, fascinating, and you know the discussions that went on behind closed doors there.
Alison: So we have the Utah Hockey Club, which kind of, it’s funny, it’s not obviously an Olympic or a Paralympic story, but it feels like something that would happen. It feels like this is what’s going to happen with Milan.
Like six months ahead of the games, it’ll be like, We don’t have this sliding track. Yeah, we make, we make Milan sliding track. We just put it in the middle of city.
Jill: So I believe by 2034 there’s going to be a new hockey stadium built or something. Else that will incorporate hockey there right now they’re playing with the Utah Jazz and I don’t think the stadium is well the stadium was built for basketball and yes you can have dual purpose stadiums, but I don’t think that one was built quite well enough to hold both games was
Alison: built as a dual purpose.
Yes. So that is a little trickier.
Jill: Yes, so you will see that, curling was outside of the city. It will move into the city. I believe that was part of the mandate, of somebody’s mandate. I don’t think it, I’m not sure it was the IOC or IPC, but I think they want it closer in because the downtown will be, it just will attract more people.
Big Air will be a temporary stadium in downtown. So they are going, I don’t know where they’re constructing it. But that will be, I will tell you right now, fun, fun, fun. I was going to say, I will tell you that is where Jill will be. I will be there. and there’s a ton of hotels. I will tell you that as well.
When I was there in 2001, I went on a road trip with a friend and we went to Salt Lake and we stayed for a night in a random hotel. Holiday Inn and we saw the Olympic family hotel being built and it was kind of like this beacon in the middle of nothing. And we ended up staying there a night because we just walked in and said, how much would it be?
And it was, it was about the same price as the holiday and because they were just getting open and. Nobody was staying there yet now is in the middle of stuff and there’s just, we were a block away in a Hilton property. Uh, we were, there’s just hotels everywhere. You turn around. So, I think hotel wise, it will be decent.
I don’t know how they’re going to do with, I’m sure they’ll have some kind of bus transportation that will take you out to the mountains if you want. but it’s going to be a good games. I think they’re excited. They’re ready to go. And it’ll be fun to have a winter one back on U. S. soil. I will say that.
Go to Salt Lake. Go to Salt Lake ahead of time. Enjoy the game stuff. And if you go, let us know.
We’ll Be at Olympin!
Jill: You know where else you can go if you don’t have time to go to Salt Lake. Olympin! That’s right. Uh, we will be at the Olympian show this November, November 8th through 10th. It will be at the Marriott Atlanta Buckhead Hotel and Conference Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It is a free memorabilia show where you can buy and trade pins and other cool Olympic and Paralympic souvenirs.
You, uh, acquired, uh, Valdi, a mascot last time around. That’s right. Uh, we have gotten, we have gotten socks. Previous Olympics.
Alison: And let me tell you something. Those are nice socks that we got. Were they from Rio?
Jill: Yes, they are Rio socks. They are very, very nice. There’s all sorts of stuff. You never know what you’re going to find if you’re into collecting like poster art.
Sometimes people will have posters there, diplomas, medals, all this stuff. It’s very, very cool even to just come and look around. So we will be there again. That’s Friday through Sunday, November 8th through 10th at the Marriott Atlanta Buckhead Hotel and Conference Center.
Milan-Cortina 2026 News
Jill: Buenasera. This is the fun part where I know where you are and do a lingo.
Alison: I was gonna tell you that I like to skate, but then I got nervous about it. I couldn’t remember the skate part. I remembered mi piace, and I was like, is it patinare or patinare? And I was like, no, just Write it down next time.
Jill: Milan Cortina has announced the ticket prices for the games. For the Olympics, tickets will start at 30 Euros. 22 percent of all tickets will be under 40 Euros. And 57 percent of tickets will be under 100 Euros. So, not bad. That does mean that there are going to be some expensive tickets for sure.
Alison: As you would expect.
I mean, you would not expect the women’s figure skating final To be under a hundred euros, even for the nosebleed seats, come on, or the opening ceremonies or the closing ceremony. I mean, we know there are headliner that those tickets are just going to be expensive. There’s just no way around that.
Jill: For the Paralympics, tickets will start at 10 euros for kids under 14 and they’re going to be 90 percent of tickets, which is they’re going to have 200, 000 tickets that will be less than 35 euros.
So, if really you need to see the games on the budget. Go to the Paralympics.
Alison: And just park your little tushy at Flood Hockey, because that’s all you need to do to have an amazing time at the Winter Paralympics. You don’t need to do anything else. One hotel, one event, and you will have a grand old time.
Jill: Men’s hockey has also finished qualifications. So the final quota spots have gone to Slovakia, who are the bronze medalists from 22, Latvia and Denmark. So we have NHL players now, so that’s going to put a little monkey wrench in this. Slovakia doesn’t really have much in the way of NHL players, so it’ll be interesting to see how they do comparatively.
But they were kind of a surprise in 2022. And they were a lot of fun, and the country went crazy, so that was awesome. So maybe some of that Olympic magic will come back. There are some Latvians on the Vancouver Canucks and the Columbus Blue Jackets, so they do have that going for them. Denmark has one player in the NHL, so they will, uh, We’ll likely have that on their roster.
Currently, we don’t know if Russia will be in the games. Russia and Belarus are still banned from international competition for this season, but the IIHF has not issued a ruling for next season, which is what the games will be in. So if the IIHF drops a ban, Russia will be in because it was one of the top ranked teams following the world’s championships in 2023.
If they uphold the ban, France will be in. Other teams in the tournament are Italy, because they are the host, Canada, Finland, USA, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, and Czechia.
Alison: Oh, I’m just going to go to some Czechia games, man. Czech hockey is so amazing. Czech hockey players are amazing.
Czech hockey fans are amazing. Just want to go hang out with the Czech hockey people again.
Jill: What makes the players amazing? Just go
Alison: watch
Jill: some
Alison: hockey, Jill. You know what, the Czech, uh, focus on skill is really high. I mean, not that she won’t have some Czech bruisers, but their skill is really, really good.
And the Czech fans just go absolutely wild.
Jill: One thing I forgot to mention is that as part of the funding for those games, uh, the state paid 60 million dollars.
The taxpayers got a 60 million refund because there was a 100 million surplus. So 60 million went back to the taxpayers. I know, I see you writing this down. I started looking into it too. I found a little bit that kind of confirmed that. And then 40 million went into developing the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation.
Alison: Okay,
TKFLASTAN Update
Alison: Welcome to Shookflistan. Now is
Jill: the time in the show where we check in with our team Keep the Flame Alive. These are past guests and listeners of the show who make up our citizenship of Shookflistan.
Alison: Para triathlete Grace Norman is competing at the World Triathlon Championship Finals in Andalusia, Spain on October 18th.
Jill: Pole vaulter Katie Najat Moon was inducted into the Ashland University Hall of Fame.
Alison: And Monica Quimby, we’re just sending out some love and good vibes for you. She was evacuated from her home out of the path of Hurricane Milton. So for everyone in that same situation, lots of love and lots of good wishes for you.
Jill: And also, listener Dan is participating in the New York City Marathon that is coming up soon, and he is raising money for the Women’s Sport Foundation. If you would like to support him, you can find a link to that. He posted it in the Facebook group. So good luck, Dan. That is gonna do it for this episode.
Let us know your favorite memory of Salt Lake City 2002,
Alison: and we love hearing from you. You can find us and other listeners on our Facebook group. Keep the Flame Alive Podcast. You can email us at Flame Alive pod@gmail.com. The voicemail and text line is always open. It’s 2 0 8 3 5 2 6 3 4 8. That’s 208flameit.
And be sure to look in the episode show notes for how to get our weekly newsletter and follow us on our socials to get all our content.
Jill: Next week we will be back with more stories and news from the Olympics and Paralympics. We’ve been talking to a lot of people about Paris stuff. We have interviews of things looking ahead to 2026, so we will be excited to bring all of them to you.
Thank you so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive.