Russia athletes arriving for youth games

Last summer, Olene Walker bounded onto a stage at Murray High School wearing a blue track suit to bid bon voyage to athletes headed to Moscow for the summer portion of the Moscow-Utah Youth Games.

While undeniably enthusiastic, Walker, at that time lieutenant governor, was nonetheless a bit player in an international youth athletic competition dreamed up by former Gov. Mike Leavitt and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.

Times change. A short six months later Walker herself is in charge of the largest multisport competition in Utah outside of the Olympics: the winter portion of the Moscow-Utah Youth Games.

"She, from the very beginning, has been very much into it," said David Winder, Walker's (and, formerly, Leavitt's) assistant for special projects and co-chairman of the games. "She's clearly made this one of the projects of the winter."

After months of preparation, on Friday more than 300 Muscovites — athletes, coaches, entertainers, security people and dignitaries, including Luzhkov himself — will arrive at Salt Lake City International Airport on an Aeroflot charter flight for a week of friendly competition on ice, snow and court.

It will be, basically, a miniature version of the Olympics. Opening and closing ceremonies will be held at the Olympic Cauldron Park south of Rice-Eccles Stadium. Competitions in skiing, skating, jumping, hockey, curling, tennis and volleyball will be held in most of the venues of the 2002 Winter Games.

Best of all for those who were discouraged by Olympic ticket prices, none of the events will cost a dime except figure skating and the opening/closing ceremonies ($5 and $10, respectively).

"We hope people have the same type of feeling as the Olympics," said Utah Sports Commission president and games co-chairman Jeff Robbins.

Olympic organizers are in fact helping out, contributing $75,000 to help cover the cost of relighting the Olympic caldron during the opening ceremonies.

"We think having that celebration is a good commemoration of our games," said former Salt Lake Organizing Committee president Fraser Bullock.

Plans call for the gas-fueled Olympic flame to be relighted each day of the youth games from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. It will be extinguished during closing ceremonies on Feb. 7 in a ritual that will also mark the upcoming two-year anniversary of the 2002 Winter Games.

Unlike in Moscow last summer, where all the athletes stayed in the same hotel, the Russian athletes this time will stay in the Red Lion hotel, while their Utah counterparts will bunk at home.