Columnist Dean Juipe: Reno-Tahoe Olympic bid apt to fail

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, June 5, 2001 | 10:33 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

It is an endeavor that has gone largely unnoticed and, to date, has barely caused a ripple of interest with either the media or the general public.

But Nevada -- specifically the Reno-Tahoe area of Nevada -- is, once again, planning on making a run at hosting the Winter Olympics, this time in either 2014 or 2018.

Those dates are a long way off and a formal bid on even the earlier of the two Games is not due until at least 2003. But a bid will be submitted to the United States Olympic Committee, said Jerry Cail, the chairman of the Nevada Commission on Sports.

The same group tried in vain to procure the 1992 and 1998 Winter Olympics, and it will conduct a feasibility study before following through with a bid for 2014 and/or 2018.

While we have to wish the NCS good luck in its well-meaning attempt to promote the state and bring a worldwide attraction here, in actuality it seems as if the Reno-Tahoe bid will be pigeonholed as unlikely to bring about the desired result.

Of course the Salt Lake Organizing Committee may have had similar thoughts before it successfully landed the 2002 Games that are virtually knocking on the door.

But Reno-Tahoe?

I have my doubts.

Its best chance of gaining not only the U.S. Olympic Committee's approval but that of the International Olympic Committee might very well rest on how the Games go next year in Utah.

Reno-Tahoe could benefit if next year's Olympics come off smoothly and if everyone associated with the spectacle feels as if it was handled in the most professional manner.

But right now there's some concern about Salt Lake City, not so much from a facilities standpoint but because of peripheral items such as subconscious religious messaging -- LDS church towers looming over Olympic venues, for instance -- and a lack of hospitality available for those who care to drink or stay out after the midnight hour.

The Salt Lake Games have a chance to be categorized as dreadfully dull if the city fails to reflect the energy of the sports being contested. If tourists leave there lamenting their decision, any notion of bringing the Winter Olympics back to this general area of the world in the next 12, 16 or even 50 years might very well be immediately discarded.

In some regards it's too bad Reno-Tahoe didn't beat Salt Lake to the punch, if for no other reason than the IOC's desire to spread the Games around the globe works against coming back to the western United States again so soon.

It's hard to picture two Olympics in the region within 12 or 16 years.

But the Tahoe portion of the Reno-Tahoe bid has something going for it: It is more scenic than Salt Lake City, for example, and there's a certain mystique to its wondrous setting.

But the Reno portion of that same bid might fall flat with the IOC if the Salt Lake City experience is deemed too melancholy, given Reno's reputation as the poor man's Las Vegas.

The IOC could, and probably will, take its party elsewhere, deciding that a return engagement to any place even within driving distance of Salt Lake City is too close for comfort.