XIX Olympic Winter Games

Salt Lake City, the golden expanse to the West. Nestled alongside the beautiful Wasatch Mountains, Salt Lake is home to the "Greatest Snow on Earth"; and in 2002, these historic western trails played host to the XIX Games of the Winter Olympiad. Utah is a land of scenic views; rich with sun-blazed deserts, dense with lush forests, all underneath a cold, seasoned sky. The Olympics finally came to the crossroads of the American West.

Salt Lake City is not simply diverse in the nature of its landscape, but, also, in the vivacity of its people. A cultural hub comprised of immigrants, refugees, pioneers, trailblazers, and past settlers, Salt Lake has quite the diaspora. A fairly large portion of its almost 1.5 million inhabitants are native Slavs; ethnic Yugoslavs play a vital role when it comes to the city's economic movement forward. Certainly still a minority, the southern Slavs residing in the valley are truly appreciative of the city's Olympic spirit. The Games, almost twenty years prior to the Salt Lake games, were held in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. Now the Games return, to be hosted by, and in, an oddly similar setting.

The 2002 Winter Games were larger than all the prior ones, with the addition of 10 new events. Salt Lake had won the bid in 1995, and the path was set for one of the greatest games in modern history. Records were broken, set, and broken again; there were plenty of highlights and jaw-dropping moments; Salt Lake really delivered. The city played successful host, and the Games served as the catalyst to ignite Salt Lake into the 21st century. Salt Lake is now an urban hub, a place of global appeal; it is an amazing city that does more to fill one's appetite for adventure than most other places. Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2002, did an awesome job in lighting the fire within!