SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake City was the last U.S. city to host an Olympics, and there's a grassroots campaign to bring the Winter Olympics back there again.
Austin Schofield heads up a social media campaign called Salt Lake 2030, aimed at making Utah's capital only the second U.S. city – along with Lake Placid, N.Y. – to host two Winter Olympic Games. The campaign has thousands of followers, mostly from outside the United States.
"Salt Lake City has some massive advantages," Schofield said.
Many of the venues from the 2002 Winter Games, including Olympic Oval skating facility and the Utah Olympic Park Track for bobsled are still in use today. The bobsled track in Park City is one of only two in the United States. The other is in Lake Placid.
To make a second Salt Lake City Olympics happen, it would need the support of the city, the state, the U.S. Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee.
"We got the city and state. We have the U.S. Committee," Schofield said. "So now we're trying to prove to the IOC that there is support for the Olympics to come back to Salt Lake."
If Schofield and others can make it happen, Salt Lake City would be one of only three U.S. cities to host more than one Games. The other one besides Lake Placid is Los Angeles, which hosted the Summer Games in 1932 and 1994, and will host again in 2028.
"If you want to Olympics to return to Salt Lake or the United States ... then follow the social media accounts watching the Olympics," Schofield said. "[That's] the message we're trying to get out."
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