Odell's group, Save Our Canyons, has come out against using the canyons for the Olympics. So have representatives from the Sierra Club, Audubon Society and Trout Unlimited. Olympic organizers had bid for the 1998 and 2002 Winter Games with a plan to use the nearby Mountain Dell Golf Course for the extensive courses and facilities needed to host the cross-country and biathlon events. Now the Salt Lake Organizing Committee has decided the Little Dell Recreation Area above the golf course would be better because it gets more snow and wouldn't have to be restored after the Games end. Salt Lake City, which owns the land, will decide whether the area can be used after reviewing an environmental study paid for by Olympic organizers that's expected to be completed this spring.
Athletes are delighted at the prospect of having a permanent training and competition site.
I'd hate to see us get to the point where to have the facility, we just steamroll the environmentalists,'' said Edward Finnerty, an attorney in Lake Placid, N.Y., who heads US Skiing's cross-country competition committee. Finnerty is part of a small group of cross-country experts recently put together by US Skiing to tell Olympic organizers what kind of facility the sport wants. While the group made no recommendations about specific sites, their findings appear to rule out using the golf course because they expect the Olympics to leave a legacy facility. The group ''views the 2002 Games as the greatest opportunity in decades to energize cross-country ski competition and enthusiasm at every level of participation,'' according to their report. The others are in Lake Placid, Anchorage and Giants Ridge in Minnesota.