Salt Lake City Among Finalists in Bidding for 2002 Winter Games

Salt Lake City, considered the early favorite, was among four cities selected as finalists Tuesday by an International Olympic Committee panel in bidding for the 2002 Winter Games.

Following a recent report by the IOC’s site-evaluation commission, the 10-member panel chose the four highest-ranking cities--Salt Lake City, Oestersund, Sweden; Sion, Switzerland, and Quebec City, Canada--from among nine candidates.

“If there was a surprise, it was that there were no surprises,” said Dave Johnson, vice president of Salt Lake City’s bid committee, after the announcement at IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

“There was no question that the IOC took the evaluation commission report seriously. Everything was done by the book, which is a very positive thing.”

The 96 voting members of the IOC will choose the winner June 16 at Budapest, Hungary. Salt Lake City was runner-up to Nagano, Japan, in voting four years ago for the 1998 Winter Games.

Eliminated Tuesday were Graz, Austria; Jaca, Spain; Poprad-Tatry, Slovakia; Sochi, Russia, and Tarvisio, Italy.