Salt Lake City Closes In

A Canadian Olympic official told boosters of Salt Lake’s 2002 Winter Games’ bid what they wanted to hear - that Utah remains a strong candidate in the final round of the selection process.

“You’re doing extraordinarily well,” Roger Jackson, one of four original members of the 1988 Calgary Olympic Bid Committee, told a Salt Lake Olympic Bid Committee fund-raising breakfast.

He warned the city not to grow overconfident.

Atlanta won the 1996 Summer Games over sentimental favorite Athens, Greece, in the last week of the campaign.

Ironically, that victory likely cost Salt Lake City the 1998 Winter Games, won by Nagano, Japan.

The Olympic torch relay for the 1996 Games will be the largest in history, using 10,000 torch bearers to move the flame on a 15,000-mile nationwide journey.

The relay will begin in Los Angeles, site of the 1932 and 1984 Olympics, on April 27, 1996. The torch will pass within a 2-hour drive of 90 percent of the U.S. population.<

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