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- Utah's 2034 Winter Games bid was praised by IOC President Thomas Bach.
- Bach dismisses Republicans' push for Olympic transgender athlete policy change.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's successful bid to host the 2034 Winter Games "had it all," International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach declared to a global group of reporters Wednesday as he wraps up his 12-year tenure.
During a virtual media roundtable that included the Deseret News, Bach also addressed a letter from Republicans in Congress demanding the Switzerland-based International Olympic Committee "ensure that only biological women and girls are allowed to compete in female sports categories" at the Olympics.
Utah is the final Olympic site to be selected under Bach's presidency. The 71-year-old German fencer, who won Olympic gold at the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal, is set to be replaced next week as committee leader and will step down as a member in June.
For Bach, the long-awaited decision to send the Winter Games back to Utah, wasn't that hard.
"The election of the host city is not a personal one. You have to look at what is best for the future of the Olympic movement. And there, Salt Lake City was the best candidate for all (kinds of) different reasons," he said.
"Salt Lake City had it all," Bach said, ticking off Utah's experience from hosting the 2002 Winter Games as well as "existing facilities that are all close by. You can create the Olympic spirit. You have an Olympic Village. You have snow. You have an excited population."
With a shrug of his shoulders, he said with a smile, "What more can you have? Therefore, this was not rocket science, to say that Salt Lake City is the best. On top of this came that we can give some stability, some security to the Winter Games."
That comes from having chosen the 2034 host a decade early under the new, less formal bid process, instead of the traditional seven years ahead. The committee voted last July in Paris to give Utah another Winter Games.
Now, Bach said, the International Olympic Committee will have time to further study the impact of climate change on winter sports and the potential rotation of future Winter Games among a select group of hosts seen as continuing to be able to offer cold enough temperatures for competition.
He said he expects the committee's examination of global warming to come up with a system where three continents, presumably North America, Europe and Asia, all " have a fair chance to organize" future Winter Games.
Is effort to change policy on transgender athletes due to a 'fake news campaign?'
Bach was much less upbeat about the letter sent to him by more than two dozen Republicans in the U.S. Congress urging the Olympics to "base eligibility for women's athletic competitions on biological sex," in line with a February executive order signed by President Donald Trump.
The International Olympic Committee has left decisions on eligibility for transgender athletes up to the individual international sports federations under a November 2021 "Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations."
That could be changed, however, depending on the outcome of the committee's presidential election next week. At least one of the seven contenders in what's seen as a wide-open race, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe, agrees with Trump's position on transgender athletes.
The letter-writing effort was led by Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, and Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Utah Republican Reps. Blake Moore and Mike Kennedy also signed the letter, which Bach said he has not yet seen.
But he still had strong words about the attempt to change the Olympic policy, which comes as the U.S. is poised to hold the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, and then the Winter Games in Utah in 2034.
"All this is based on a fake news campaign started in Russia," Bach said, citing the controversy surrounding two boxers whose gender was questioned by some at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris.
"They were born as women. They were raised as women. They competed as women over many years," winning and losing matches, Bach said, including at the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo, delayed a year due to COVID-19.
He said the campaign "alleging they are men" was started against the boxers because the IOC had withdrawn the Russian-led International Boxing Association over ethical, financing and other concerns.
The International Olympic Committee also limited the participation of Russians and Belarusians in the Paris Games because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, permitting them only to compete as neutral athletes without displaying their flag or other national symbols.
"This was one of a number of these fake news campaigns coming from Russia, defamation campaigns against the Games in Paris, against France, against the IOC, against me personally," Bach said.
"But it is, and it was, a fake news campaign. Therefore, I could only advise everybody to let the dust settle," he said, before looking "at the facts. Then, based on the facts and science, I guess also my successor will be happy to discuss" the transgender issue.
The current policy was developed over two years, he said, adding that any change should be based on factual and scientific information.
