Salt Lake City and French Alps win Winter Olympic games, but with new strict IOC conditions

John Coates has changed the contract and demanded the supreme authority of the World Anti Doping Agency be respected before allowing Salt Lake City to win the 2034 Olympic Games.

International Olympic Committee vice president John Coates in Paris on July 16, 2024 ahead of the Paris Olympic Games. Photo: Jacquelin Magnay

Australia’s International Olympic Committee member John Coates put the blowtorch to the American government by insisting on additional legal guarantees to “respect the supreme authority of the World Anti Doping Agency” before Salt Lake City was awarded the 2034 Olympic Games.

In a highly embarrassing moment at the IOC session in Paris, the Salt Lake City team was expecting to have their bid rubber stamped, only to face a barrage of criticism by various IOC members, before almost reluctantly being awarded the games with the new legal conditions attached.

The IOC, which is part funder of WADA, has been upset about the US-led global criticism of WADA’s handling of the positive tests by 23 Chinese swimmers.

Mr Coates said the IOC “would terminate, repeat terminate, the contract where the supreme authority of WADA in the fight against doping is not fully respected or if the application of the world antidoping code is hindered or undermined”.

President Thomas Bach and IOC member John Coates during the 142nd session of the IOC in Paris. Picture: AFP

Belgian IOC member and Equestrian Federation president Ingmar De Vos said the United States’ “incentives” in the areas of anti doping were particularly worrying and unacceptable for the IOC particularly as sports officials have been subpoenaed to give evidence in US courts about the Chinese case.

Mr de Vos said such actions were undermining the World Anti Doping Agency, trust in the anti- doping system and the integrity of world sport.

He said “it is regrettable the abuse of sport for political reasons” and worried about the impact on Olympic events already allocated such as the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

Mr de Vos claimed that the Chinese doping case was “a simple case of contamination’’ but yet WADA was accused by some stakeholders and in the media as the worse thing - a coverup to favour China and Chinese athletes.

Salt Lake-Utah 2034 delegation members: four time Olympian Catherine Raney-Norman, Utah Governor Spencer Cox, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, and two-time Paralympian Dani Aravich. Picture: Getty Images

Mr Coates said the IOC had reinforced the host city contract and that as well as written guarantees to come about the authority of WADA, the IOC considered the bid team’s verbal promises to be legally binding.

He warned bid leaders Fraser Bullock, US olympic committee president Gene Sykes, as well as Utah Govenor Spencer Cox, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall that their verbal assurances and commitments made to the IOC this week were legally binding, reminding them that the session “is being recorded” .

The International Olympic Committee also approved the bid by the French Alps to host the 2030 Olympics, marking a return of the Games to France just six years after the current Paris Games.

The French Alps final presentation was led by an impassioned French president Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday at the Palais des Congres.

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks after the French Alps was awarded the 2030 Winter Games. Picture: AFP

But the election of the French Alps, with events in Meribel, Courchevel, Val d’Isere, La Clusaz and skating in Nice - is conditional on signed guarantees which are already months late because of the political turmoil in the country.

Mr Macron told the 109 IOC members, speaking in English: ”I confirm my commitment and the total commitment of the French nation.“

He said he would ask the next prime minister not only to include this guarantee but also to promulgate an Olympic law.

The French parliament is currently in a “technical” mode without any party having a political majority.

Macron has continued with his centrist caretaker government saying it would remain in place until after the end of the Olympics to avoid disorder.

The left bloc called the New Popular Front won the most seats in the recent snap parliament elections and has only just decided its preferred candidate to put forward to be prime minister, a little-known civil servant Lucie Castets.

France has hosted the Winter Games in Chamonix in 1924, Grenoble in 1968 and Albertville in 1992. Salt Lake City has hosted the Winter Olympics in 2002.

Originally published as Salt Lake City and French Alps win Winter Olympic games, but with new strict IOC conditions