Keeping up with Mitt

On a warm spring morning 627 days before the Winter Olympics, the discussion has turned to the topic of, to put it plainly, freezing butts.

The Olympics are about many important things of course — world-class athletics, national pride, television revenue — but, even still, it's the million little details that can make a difference. What if February of 2002 turns out to be snowy and blowy? What if, as happened at Lillehammer in 1998, the spectators have to hike 30 minutes to an outdoor venue, and when they get there they have to wait for hours on bleachers covered with ice?

This is the worst-case scenario on the minds of Salt Lake Organizing Committee President Mitt Romney and a dozen other staff members who are gathered this beautiful spring morning in the hills outside Park City at the base of the Olympic ski jump. The area is currently a pile of dirt, but 20 months from now, this is where 10,000 standing spectators and 10,000 seated spectators will watch the K90 and the K120. What if all those people are cold and miserable?

Why not sell "heated butt pads," suggests Fraser Bullock, SLOC chief operating officer.

And how about about tripod seats for the spectators who have to stand, suggests Romney.

Maybe, adds Romney, we could have a place where people could rent tripod seats and heated pads. There's a little discussion about this and then Romney turns to Bullock and grins: "Is that a million dollars of revenue we just added?"

The talk drifts to warming huts and security issues and video boards and then back to the mile and three-quarters — from the far reaches of the parking lot to the ski jump viewing area — that spectators will have to walk. John Bennion, SLOC director of Games services, leans over and whispers to Bullock: Maybe we should name these roads. How about Bataan, he adds.

Of course he's just joking. Olympic officials are not implying that the walk to any venue will be a death march.

But, to make sure, Romney has arranged for the group to walk the walk, just as if they were spectators and this were really 2002. So the meeting adjourns to the parking lot, and the staff members begin the trek up.