[2] Ogden-born lawyer Tom Welch and a Utah Economic Development Professional, David Johnson, were in charge of the Salt Lake Bid Committee.
From 1986 through 1995, they worked on supporting Salt Lake City's bid in Europe, Latin America, and Africa, meeting with the IOC Members and International Sport organizations.
IOC members who came to inspect Nagano were put up in ritzy hot spring resorts, where they washed down expensive sushi with sake poured by kimono-clad geisha.
The high costs related to bringing IOC Members to Salt Lake City to see the venues proposed for the Games.
In June 1995, 50,000 people gathered outside the Salt Lake City Mayor's office to receive the result of the final announcement.
[citation needed] In April 1998, the board attempted to safeguard its aura of secrecy by amending its bylaws to stipulate that any member providing the press with confidential information could be dismissed.
The six members were Agustin Arroyo of Ecuador, Zein El Abdin Ahmed Abdel Gadir of Sudan, Jean-Claude Ganga of the Republic of Congo, Lamine Keita of Mali, Charles Mukora of Kenya, Sergio Santander Fantini of Chile, and David Sikhulumi Sibandze of Swaziland, though Sibandze resigned during the investigation.
Additionally, new term and age limits were put into place for IOC membership, and fifteen former Olympic athletes were added to the committee.
[11] Romney aided in reorganizing the committee, renewed sponsor enthusiasm, and helped to begin fixing the budget, which at the time was short US$379,000,000 (equivalent to $693,192,968 in 2023).
[13] Romney's successful leadership of the SLOC was seen as helpful to his future political career,[12] in which he would go on to become the Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007, the 2012 Republican Presidential candidate, and a United States Senator from Utah from 2019 to 2025.