Critics see Games as a mixed bag

An outspoken critic of the political chicanery inherent in the Olympic movement, Ken Bullock remembers being lectured about how the community would come together once people saw the Olympic torch.

But Bullock, who represents the interests of local government as a director on the Salt Lake Organizing Committee board, was doubtful until he stood on a street corner in Lehi earlier this month as thousands greeted the arrival of the torch.

"(That) was right," said Bullock. "I saw people wanting to believe in ideals that superseded the struggles people have on a daily basis, a need to believe in the higher ideals the Olympics are founded on. Those 15 seconds as the torch went by was as close as many ever got to a real Olympic experience. But they came out by the thousands."

It was also a reminder, he said, that all the bickering, naysaying and criticism over the minutia of Games planning don't seem all that important in the euphoria of athletic competition or the inescapable perception that "Utah showed well to the rest of the world."

For years, Games critics have fired a steady barrage of salvos at organizers, complaining about environmental degradation caused by venue development, about public monies being diverted to Olympic preparations and about the sacrifice of civil liberties in the name of Games security.

And then there was the moral and ethical dilemmas swirling around the bid scandal.

Collectively, a small group of critics have been watchdogs, annoying SLOC and community cheerleaders with their constant yapping but also forcing debate on issues that SLOC would just as soon have kept within its own family.

Today, these critics watch the Olympic hoopla with a mixture of bewilderment and amusement, relief and suspicion.

"I hope we don't overlook the fact these were most corrupt Games in the history of sports," said Alexis Kelner, a sports historian and longtime watchdog of the Olympic movement in Utah. "All the glitz and glamour of the open and closing ceremonies should not mask the fact these gains were ill-gotten."

Steve Pace, a self-described "inveterate whiner" who raised the ire of SLOC more than once with his badgering, some of it very tongue-in-cheek, said the Olympics have taught Utahns to balance the state's need to control social behavior with the need not to look completely stupid in the eyes of the world.

"The need to not look stupid won out for 17 days," he said. "We had strong beers being drunk, we had no club memberships, we had alcohol in the presence of children, we had it happening within a thousand feet of a school, and we had people having a good time. You'd have been arrested for that two weeks ago, and you will again in two more weeks. But for 17 days we had sanity."

On the last Saturday night of the games, the sanity got a little out of hand. Police in riot gear marched near Bud World at the Gallivan Plaza to control an unruly crowd.

"I was there," said Dr. George Van Komen, a drinking issues activist. "There was a tremendous amount of underage drinking going on. They were selling beer in Bud World to every adult that seemed to be in there. There's no question this all came out of Bud World. But the police took a hear-no-evil, see-no-evil attitude."

Now, says Van Komen, local leaders — and the beer company itself — are ducking for cover.

"The mayor is doing damage control," he said. "He's trying to distance himself from it all. And I think that's inappropriate. Somebody made the decision not to enforce the alcohol laws that are on the books, and those people need to assume responsibility for what happened."

Van Komen believes the only thing that prevented a major tragedy was the strict security measures regarding weapons.

Despite some ugly moment, the Olympics weren't all bad for Utah, Pace said. After all, Utah political leaders managed to "shake down" the federal government for hundreds of millions of dollars for security, roads, transit and other infrastructure.

"Utah is short on many things, but mendacity among its political leaders is not one of them," he said. "They are fibbing all the time."

The naysaying isn't likely to go away soon, Pace predicted. There will be a period of backslapping and self-congratulations by politicos and Games organizers, followed by bills coming due, scapegoating and fixing blame. But there probably will be little accounting of how public funds were actually spent.

Kelner, who was involved in Utah's Olympic bid in the 1970s, said it will be months before the public knows the bottom line on how much was spent and how it was spent, and whether taxpayers dollars are returned. He has a stack of newspaper clippings showing how in 1986 the cost was estimated at $347 million, then it went up to $880 million and "now they are saying it could be $1.9 billion or $2.1 billion."

Who will be left holding the bag? "Lots of promises were made, and now we see if those promises will be kept," Kelner said.

Even seeing how successful the Games were, Kelner isn't sure it was worth all the trouble. He loved the fact downtown Salt Lake City was alive with activity — something it hasn't seen since the 1890s and early 1900s. He loved the fact Utahns were exposed to world cultures. He loved the constant stream of entertainment.

More than anything, "The spectacle of sports uniting the world was worth it," he said.

But closing down the University of Utah, the unsavory politics that resulted in the Snowbasin land exchange, the disregard of environmental laws, and the exclusion of the public from policy decisions clearly balance the scale on the other side, he said. Bullock believes the scales are probably weighted in favor of Utah's Olympic experience.

"I am really not surprised at how well things have gone," he said. "Remember the attitudes when (bribery) scandal broke, everything is 'woe is us', the doom and gloom that we couldn't do this. But the organizing at that time was by no means in crisis. But we succeeded in lowering expectations, and when we pulled things off, then we looked like heroes. But the reasons the Games are a success are the reasons we got the bid in the first place. We have the hotels, the superb venues, the infrastructure and the citizens who volunteered."

Bullock said Utah was also amazingly lucky. Not only have the Games been devoid of serious political distractions, but the weather cooperated perfectly, leaving images of crystal-clear skies and sunshine in people's minds around the world.

The tragedy of terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 also gave people a reason to pay attention to the Olympics, he said.

Bullock says he saw the unsavory side of the Olympics during six years of Games preparations, and much of what he saw left a bad taste in his mouth.

"In many respects, it was a negative experience," Bullock said of his tenure on SLOC's board. "Their lack of willingness to be open with the public, their lack of willingness to discuss uncomfortable issues, their lack of tolerance and respect for others' opinions and their constant need to spin everything."

But the taste goes away, he said, when he hears skeleton hero Jim Shea say the medal never mattered to him, only the opportunity to compete.

"The International Olympic Committee and the U.S. Olympic Committee should try to build on that," he said. "It's not about sponsorships."

Wes Odell with Save Our Canyons, a critic of SLOC's environmental policies, said most people will find the Olympics to have been a mixed bag, some good and some bad. But the real winners and losers will be left for history to decide, not television commentators or newspaper columnists.

"This is not a cheering contest, this is not a contest to see who is the prettiest maiden in the kingdom," he said. And any evaluation, he added, "ought to be done in the quiet of history, written by historians not involved in this at all."

A lot of these critics are thoroughly disappointed that the Olympics did go so well. Stephen Pace was secretly hoping for a terrorist action, so he could tell us all "I told you so." I work with a rabid environmentalist, who told me she and her live-in boyfriend had a pretty good time at the Olympics, and how surprised she was that Utahns were able to organize it so well, and how they didn't screw up too badly. Sigh.

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The most disappointing thing for these whiners must be that the Church lived up to its promise not to proseletyze outside of Temple Square. I wonder what they had to do with all those verbal spit wads they had ready for the first sign of Mormon proseletyzers. Oh well! Back to their dull, dreary lives of moaning and groaning about liquor laws and pushing for a lottery.

I know, the critics were really surprised that we Mormons managed to keep our word by not proselytizing during the Olympics.

I just read an article in the Washington Post where the writer claimed that the LDS members and lying low during the Olympics was actually a devious plot by the LDS PR dept. The LDS Church looked golden and restrained in comparison to all the other groups passing out literature near Temple Square.

Oh yeah. If the Mormons are out in force, they're up to something. If they hanging back and being reserved, they're up to something. Gotta love it.

Exactly. I do not condone what the committee did to get the Olympics to come to Utah, if it would have been up to me, I would have told the IOC to take a hike. I think the bidders got so wrapped up in getting the bid to SLC that they fell into the trap of "everyone else does it, so we have to to." The maddening part was the holier-than-thou attitude of Juan Antonio Sammaranch and the IOC members who said that SLC caused the corruption, that the IOC were innocent little sheep. I think Rogge is slowly cleaning up the mess that Sammaranch left behind.

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