2002 Winter Olympics The cost and cost overrun for Salt Lake City 2002 compares with costs of US$2.5 billion and a cost overrun of 13% for Vancouver 2010, and costs of US$51 billion and a cost overrun of 289% for Sochi 2014, the latter being the most costly Olympics to date. Average cost for Winter Games since 1960 is US$3.1 billion, average cost overrun is 142%. A total of 78 National Olympic Committees sent athletes to the 2002 Olympics. Cameroon, Hong Kong (China), Nepal, Tajikistan, and Thailand participated in their first Winter Olympic Games. The 2002 Winter Olympics featured 78 medal events over
2002 Winter Olympics –11. This increase resulted in direct expenditures from skiers and snowboarders growing 67% from $704 million in 2002–2003 to $1.2 billion in 2010–2011. In preparation for the Winter Games 14 venues were constructed or expanded. The Utah Olympic Park was one of the venues constructed for the Games. The Olympic Park has proven to be one of the most successful venues to date because it has been maintained in top competition form. Due to the routine maintenance of the park Utah has been able to host a large number of winter competitions since 2002. Some of these events include, more