Lake Tahoe Winter Games Exploratory Committee Organized

Thirty countries, their respective flags displayed on the Tower of Nations, competed in the 1960 Olympic Winter Games at Squaw Valley — the last time the Reno-Lake Tahoe region hosted the Games. Photo: Robert M. Reid

Nevada and California Leaders Unveil Joint Effort to Explore Bid for Olympic Winter Games in the Lake Tahoe Region

Fifty-two years after the Olympic flame was first ignited in the Tahoe region, California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom and Nevada Lieutenant Governor Brian Krolicki announced recently the formation of the Lake Tahoe Winter Games Exploratory Committee, a new joint California-Nevada initiative, building on the existing efforts, dedicated to developing an Olympic Bid for the 2022 Winter Games.

The new committee, LTWGEC, is an entity created by the leadership of two separate organizations that were set up to explore a potential bid for the Tahoe Region. The two organizations — the Reno Tahoe Winter Games Coalition and the California Winter Games Committee, joined by the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee — will now be committing significant resources to the LTWGEC.

"The timing is right for Californians and Nevadans to come together and seriously explore bringing the Olympic Winter Games to the Tahoe region," Krolicki says. "Our new committee is the evolution of years of work by many people, and if the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) decides to bid on the 2022 Winter Games, we will be ready to showcase the Tahoe region's scenic majesty and winter games capabilities."

The LTWGEC will be tasked with creating a group of business, civic, and political leaders who will work to thoroughly explore the benefits and impacts of hosting the Olympic Games in the Lake Tahoe Region. According to Krolicki and Newsom, the new group's leadership will be announced soon — including a robust environmental leadership team.

"Lake Tahoe's physical beauty is our greatest asset and our greatest responsibility," Newsom says. "We can't do this without the environment being front of mind for us."

Read Krolicki's column, "Pursuing the Olympic Winter Games," here.

Read a related blog and watch a related video here.