Overlooking the Utah Olympic Park grounds Saturday evening, the heads of the international, U.S, and Utah Olympic organizations waved aside concerns that a doping scandal concerning the Chinese and written into the agreement to host the 2034 Games might serve as monkey wrench.Gene Sykes, chair of the U.S. Olympic Committee, said he was confident that differences between the world and U.S. doping bodies would work out, and it was his job to help with that.IOC President Thomas Bach, visiting for the first time since 2002, and Utah bid leader Fraser Bullock said this was something for the doping organizations and that they were full steam ahead with preparations for the 2034 Winter Olympics, everything so far going very well indeed.So what do they view as the actual big rock challenge for the organizers? That turned into something of a softball in Bullock’s handling of his reply on the heels of questions about a controversy serious enough for the IOC to discuss at length July 24 before voting in Salt Lake City-Utah as 2034 host. The United States didn’t approve of the world body seeming to accept a Chinese explanation for swimmers failing doping tests because of something they ate, and the world doping body and Olympics officials were worried for a time about being detained if they landed in U.S. territory as part of Olympics business.As Bach said Saturday and before the vote, this had nothing to do with Utah or the quality of the state’s bid with most facilities just about ready now to host the events, and other key preparations largely secured.International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach greets local athlete Nick Page’s at Utah Olympic Park on Saturday. Credit: Clayton Steward/Park Record“We would not have allocated the Games to Salt Lake City 10 years ahead if we did not have full confidence that this matter will be resolved between WADA and USADA,” Bach said.“Our biggest challenge is to maximize the opportunity we’ve been given,” Bullock said. “We are very confident in our ability to host the Games. But how can we level up and do something more impactful for our communities?”He smiled and suggested this is at least as much an opportunity as a challenge, and the state of preparations at this stage sets the organizers up to think bigger than simply staging a games.Bach was right there with him, thinking aloud about what unknown developments to come will mean for fostering creativity and the sense of the Olympics serving as a beacon of humanity’s hope through sport.  “What will AI mean in 10 years from now for organizing the Games, for the spectators’ experience, for athletes’ training and so on? To be creative and to be proactive and to develop this vision of the Games in the future — that is now the great opportunity, and since we will see the big changes in all our society and in years to come,” Bach said, “and that we will also see big opportunities in sport and the Olympic movement and Olympic Games.”In other words, don’t sweat the Chinese and doping disagreement between organizations fundamentally working on the same side. Perhaps there’s a lesson here beyond sport.The stakes for the 2034 Olympics are higher than that, the leaders suggested. Salt Lake City-Utah’s real challenge is producing another Paris, and better, with that wintery touch and a legacy that keeps the sport and spirit going into future generations.Bach visited venues and met athletes and officials Friday and Saturday in Salt Lake City and Park City. The 1976 Olympian in fencing gravitated most to young athletes, longtime U.S. spokesman Tom Kelly said while Bach toured the Utah Olympic Park and George Eccles Olympic Winter Games Museum upstairs.Bach also bore gifts with him. He gave the museum a bust of the father of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, and a photograph of old friends to Spencer Eccles, in some ways the father of Utah’s Olympic efforts.Bullock told a story about Mitt Romney, at that point the chair of the 2002 Games, going to Eccles and telling him that all they could afford for a cauldron was two Weber grills for the top of a pole, and could he please help?Eccles did, with the glass-encased structure that stands today. The works below the flame is encased in glass to signify the theme: “the fire within.” Spencer Eccles and IOC President Thomas Bach greet each other on Saturday. Credit: Clayton Steward/Park RecordThe post Olympic officials bullish as international chief makes first visit since 2002 appeared first on Park Record.