Your Own Winter Olympics Forget Vancouver
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smartspending SMART TRAVELER Your Own Winter Olympics Forget Vancouver. With curling broom and bobsled helmet in hand, we play Olympian at former host cities dusting off their old venues. By Kristen Bellstrom very four years, the Winter Olympics roll around and remind us about the glory of sport, the importance of international E cooperation and just how nuts you have to be to set foot in a bobsled. And yet here we are, crammed into one with four other suicidal adrenaline junkies, about to crack 50 mph and 3 Gs on an Calif., is now celebrating its 50th Olympic bobsled run. “Don’t hold the straps like that,” says brakeman Olympic anniversary with nostalgic Joshua Hunt. Why? “If we were to crash, you’d break your arms.” Oh. ski tours on its 1960 courses, led And with that, we’re off. by former competitors. This February, millions of Americans will spend the three weeks of Of course, there’s more than the XXI Winter Olympiad glued to their TVs, transformed into rabid just the Olympic spirit at work fans of ski jumping and curling. But with all the focus on the festivities in here. It’s no secret that hosting Vancouver, B.C., it may be surprising to learn that it’s not the only place is an expensive undertaking: stoking the Olympic flame this winter. In former host cities across the Vancouver anticipates spending continent, travelers—even those picked last in gym class—can get their about $3 billion this year, though own taste of Olympic glory, from headlong bobsled rides in Calgary to that pales next to the reported Friday-night curling lessons outside Salt Lake City to rickety elevator trips $42 billion spent by China on the to the top of Lake Placid’s vertigo-inducing ski jump. The popular sport Beijing Games. What’s more, a of spectating isn’t out of the question, either, with many towns hosting recent survey by the European Tour World Cup qualifying events. And one forgotten venue, Squaw Valley, Operators Association found that Resort Mountain City Park of courtesy Photograph 68 SMARTMONEY FEBRUARY 2010 smartspending prices: The bobsled ride at Utah Olympic Park is $200 a person—or about $4 a second. And that’s if it’s actually open. Indeed, travelers often find themselves bumped from activities by elite athletes or even local events. The day Deborah Newman, a dental-office manager from Inland Empire, Calif., visited the Olympic Park, she was disappointed to find the bobsled ride shuttered because of a World Cup competition. “Too bad, I really wanted to try it,” she says. For our own stab at Olympic glory, we visited the two most recent American hosts, Lake Placid and Salt Lake City. Along the way, we tackled our fair share of Olympic sports, watched international-level competitions, schmoozed with past and potential Olympians, and picked up enough history to fill a book. Ever dreamed of pushing off the hack, delivering the hammer across the hog line and visitation to Olympic cities often enough additional revenue to keep into the center of the house? Okay, stalls after the games, leaving all venues staffed and running. probably not. But for those who’ve those new hotel rooms and venues But visitors who arrive in ever puzzled over the curious sitting empty. And let’s not forget former host cities with dreams of sport of curling, the $7.50 lessons the economy. By nature, Winter reliving all the Olympic highlights at the Utah Olympic Oval offer a Olympics destinations lean heavily they remember may find things rare chance to take the broom into on ski tourism, which took a big a little different these days. At their own hands. And after our hit in the recession; skier visits at Squaw Valley, in the Lake Tahoe hair-raising bobsled run, pushing U.S. resorts dropped by nearly 6 region, the arena that hosted the a few rocks around an ice rink percent last season. Turning all the opening ceremonies and skating seems easy enough—that is, at fancy new facilities into a kind of events collapsed in 1983, and Lake least until instructor Dale Forsyth Olympic theme park is one way Placid’s Olympic Athletes Village Sandusky starts running through to sustain tourism—a big reason is now a federal prison. Plus, some the seemingly endless list of rules cities agree to host in the first attractions aimed at travelers seem and techniques. But before we place—and ideally brings in to still be operating at Olympic know it, we’re embroiled in a FEBRUARY 2010 SMARTMONEY 69 The Oval is just the beginning of Utah’s Olympic legacy. There are also mountain resorts, like Deer Valley and Snowbasin, where visitors can ski in the tracks of champions. In Midway, the Soldier Hollow venue, host of the 2002 cross- country events, offers a $129 “Biathlon Experience,” a mix of cross-country skiing and shooting (yes, that’s a real Olympic-grade .22). Then there’s the Olympic Park, a multisport complex where travelers can check the view from the top of the ski jumps, zip down the luge track and more. Needless to say, the weekend- warrior versions of these sports don’t hold a candle to the real thing—something we see for ourselves when we stumble onto a bobsled and skeleton (a sort of head-first version of luge) World Cup competition at Olympic Park. During the Olympics, spectator areas around the park’s sliding course were jammed with roughly 16,000 people, paying between $40 and $145 per ticket. Today we have our pick of gold. These days, the scene on a free viewing spots and stand just typical Friday night resembles a foot or so from the track, close a very large roller rink, with enough to feel the breeze when teens skating to the sounds of the athletes tear by at 70-plus Beyoncé and Jay-Z over here, mph. We encounter Johnette and curling lessons over there and Shel Zimmerman from Overland lighted display screens overhead Park, Kan., at the platform (formerly showing competition overlooking the finish line.T he SOLDIER HOLLOW heated match with a group of results) now hawking $1 corn Zimmermans had planned to (above), in Utah, local Mormon youth, jostling for dogs at the snack bar. Olympic spend the day shopping in Salt hosted the 2002 biathlon event. Below, our turn at the stones—the very wannabes can rent special speed Lake City, but when they found downtown Park City. same ones, we learn, used in skates to test the Oval’s “fastest out about the competition, their the 2002 games. And when our ice on Earth”—a boast based decision was simple. “Salt Lake two hours are up, our group on being the site of the most City will be there tomorrow,” pleads with Sandusky for a few world records. And when they says Johnette. “This is a onetime more minutes on the ice. fall on their backsides, they chance. When am I ever going to Located in Kearns, the can gaze up to the rafters at be at a World Cup event again?” Oval set the scene for eight U.S. flags from whichever countries Not that tourists are always speed-skating medals in 2002, competed in the most recent the priority at these venues. including Apolo Anton Ohno’s World Cup events at the venue. In Salt Lake City, our plan to PictureNet/Corbis by Photographs 70 SMARTMONEY FEBRUARY 2010 Smart Spending Smart Traveler dose of Olympic-level pomp Ski Like an Olympian Below, a few North American host sites and glitz may be a little where alpine lovers can schuss down the same slopes as their medal-winning idols. disconcerted by the mom-and- OLYMPIC CoST OF A SKIABLE pop feel of these destinations— MOUNTAIN YEAR DAY PASS ACRES COMMENT particularly those that hosted Whistler 2010 $86 8,171 Whistler’s runs will remain 90 percent open to the public during years ago. At Lake Placid, home Blackcomb this year’s Games, with skiers able to watch races from on-slope of the 1980 competition, it Whistler, B.C. viewing areas. But expect serious traffic and parking jam-ups. takes some looking before we finally discover theO lympic Deer Valley 2002 $86 2,026 Nostalgic skiers can cruise three Olympic runs or visit a Park City, Utah memorabilia-filled base lodge. The resort also hosts World Cup cauldron on the edge of a events every year. parking lot, sandwiched between the high school ball fields and Nakiska 1988 $62 420 A good bet for beginners, but experienced powder hounds Kananaski, should look elsewhere; surprisingly, only 14 percent of the runs a horse farm. Later we tour the Alberta qualify as “expert.” Olympic Center with James Rogers, a chatty, professorial Squaw Valley 1960 $83 4,000 Until this year, Olympic signage at historic sites was spotty. But the guide (and member of the Olympic area marks its 50th anniversary with a slate of Olympic-themed Valley, Calif. offerings, like ski days hosted by local gold medalist Jonny Moseley. original Lake Placid Olympic bid organizing committee) who noshes on an English muffin visit the Olympic museum and Cup event has unexpectedly shut as he takes us into the rink where gawk at the cauldron that held down visitor tours for the day. the underdog U.S. hockey team the flame is squashed byU tah A spokesperson from the park toppled the Soviet Union in the High School football playoffs says that with the economy fabled “Miracle on Ice” game.