Nevada agrees with California to make run at ’22 Olympics

Nevada has agreed with officials in California to make a run at hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics at Lake Tahoe, in hopes of bringing the games back to an area where they were in 1960, Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki said Wednesday.

If successful, the games would return to the United States for the first time since Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Olympics in 2002. Squaw Valley, a resort on the California side of Lake Tahoe, had the Winter games in 1960.

Krolicki told Nevada tourism leaders in Las Vegas on Wednesday that the Reno-Tahoe Winter Games Coalition has a memorandum of understanding with California leaders to try to persuade the U.S. Olympic Committee to back their bid and take it to the International Olympic Committee.

"It's transformed from really this hope and dream and inspiration to something that's become very tangible," Krolicki said.

Krolicki said the bid depends on the USOC backing its efforts.

USOC leaders, including Chairman Larry Probst and CEO Scott Blackmun, have been noncommittal about whether the United States will seek to host the 2022 games at all.