Poor Salt Lake City, Peppered With Vicious Rumors

I have heard most of the stories now about how Salt Lake City got the 2002 Winter Olympic Games-- by doing favors for certain parties, including influential members of the “buy now, skate later” International Olympic Committee.

About the IOC guy from Ecuador whose stepdaughter supposedly got a job with Utah’s state government.

About the IOC guy from Libya whose son supposedly received free tuition to Brigham Young.

About the Congo fellow who supposedly turned a $60,000 profit on a Utah land deal.

About the Finland official-- the one who already submitted her resignation--whose husband supposedly was given jobs with two different cities’ Olympic bid committees.

About the president of Chile’s Olympic organization, who supposedly accepted a $10,000 donation from Salt Lake City’s committee chief to his campaign for mayor of Santiago.

And so on, and so on.

Those poor old Salt Lakers. This’ll teach them to give the IOC their IOU. Heads are going to roll, and I don’t mean down the bobsled run. The 2002 Games might even be moved to a different city--Calgary, Innsbruck, Fresno, some other winter wonderland.

OK, maybe not Fresno.

Just how far was Salt Lake City willing to go to get a Winter Olympics?

Apparently, pretty far.

I guess any state that puts “Ski Utah” on its license plates must take its winter sports pretty seriously. On the other hand, I think Utah might be getting a bad rap. (Which is probably the first Utah rap ever heard, it being more of a Mormon Tabernacle Choir or a Donny and Marie kind of state.)

That’s why I would like to take this opportunity today to clear up a few false rumors and accusations that have been peppering Salt Lake, here and now.

For example:

There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that Utah’s governor made a personal pledge to the IOC president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, that he could pick out any mountain he likes and they’d call it Mt. Samaranch.

Totally untrue.

Samaranch is the sort of person who would never accept that kind of tribute, particularly since he couldn’t take it home.

There is also absolutely no truth to the rumor that Salt Lake City’s Olympic Organizing Committee ordered figure-skating star Michelle Kwan of the United States to finish no higher than second place in 2002, so that the gold medal could go to an ice skater from Ecuador.

Totally untrue.

Kwan is free to go for the gold, but Ecuador’s team is being given permission to enter the skating competition without skates.

Furthermore, there is absolutely no truth to the rumor that an IOC official from the Virgin Islands has requested that the state of Utah donate to the island a number of its virgins.

Totally untrue.

According to a source in Salt Lake City, “One. We promised them one, but that’s it.”

Nor is there the teensiest bit of truth to the rumor that to win the right to host the 2002 Winter Olympics, the mayors of Salt Lake City, Logan and Provo had to personally take turns washing the IOC president’s wife’s automobile.

Totally untrue.

“A vicious lie,” a Provo official snapped. “Snowmobile, not automobile.”

And there is not one chance in a million--well, in a hundred-- that to get the Olympics, the entire population of Utah was forced to sign over a document granting permission to IOC members to come into private houses at any time of day or night and to look under sofa cushions for loose change.

Totally untrue.

I have it on good authority that IOC officials may raid the refrigerator or play with the family dog, but may not remove any money from private homes under $100 denominations.

How do these lies get started?

*

I remember back in the mid-’80s, when Salt Lake City was first attempting to land a Winter Olympics but didn’t even get to be the United States’ first choice. Anchorage was given that honor instead--the first honor Anchorage has ever gotten, come to think of it.

The Salt Lakers were very upset. To be beaten out by a city in Alaska, that’s like trying to win a Grammy and losing to some guy who yodels. The only sport Anchorage is qualified to host is a moose race.

And now comes this scandal.

The Olympians finally passed Utah the torch, but kept their palms out until something got passed back. Now some of these Salt Lake people might end up making license plates.

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike .downey@latimes.com