How The Olympics Were Bought

Beaten out in the past, Salt Lake City wanted the Games badly. Now it has its wish--in a bad way

June 16, 1995: It's announced that Salt Lake City has won the right to be host of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. Grumbling from press row. "Trouble ahead," says a grizzled veteran of the Games with a sigh. "Mormon morals--that'll bring 'em down."

"Yeah," says his buddy. "I hear the bars close at 11!" How can you hold an Olympics in such circumstances?

What wasn't presaged by even the most knowing, most inside, most keen-nosed Olympics hound was that, more than three years before any torch lighting, the head of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee--a fine Mormon he was--would be brought...

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