Utah

I've covered Utah's Olympic dreams for more than three decades. Here's what I've seen

Published

2 years ago

July 28, 2024

I've covered Utah's Olympic dreams for more than three decades. Here's what I've seen

PARIS — You’ll always remember where you were for the big events, right?

After traveling more than 5,000 miles to be in Le Palais des Congres de Paris for the International Olympic Committee’s decision on whether to give Utah the 2034 Winter Games, I was sitting on the floor of a crowded makeshift holding area outside the meeting when the announcement came.

I glimpsed some of the excitement expressed by members of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games being livestreamed on a colleague’s laptop between texting editors and checking the Deseret.com website to see if the story I’d pre-written in the event of a win had posted.

The rest of the day was a blur of interviews, news conferences and an Uber ride with Deseret News Editor Sarah Jane Weaver to USA House, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s gathering place for Team USA supporters, where a private party celebrating the award was underway.

By the time I’d finished updating my stories late that night — alas, without any color from the party since news media couldn’t get in — the time difference and lack of sleep had caught up with me. It would be another day before I’d see the photos capturing the moment more than a decade of bidding paid off for the Utahns determined to bring the Olympics back.

Attendees cheer after the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2034 Winter Olympic Games to the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee during a live watch party held at the Salt Lake City and County Building in Washington Square Park on Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in downtown Salt Lake City. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

I’ve seen that joy before. And the tense smiles when bidders see a Games go somewhere else.

I’ve been covering Utah’s Olympic dreams long enough that when our public relations team asked me for the date when I first got the assignment, I paused. I know I was there in Birmingham, England, in June 1991, when Salt Lake City saw the 1998 Winter Games go to Nagano, Japan.

And I know my first story when I took over the beat was about how the proposed budget for a 1998 Olympics had doubled. Was it 1991 when the leader of that bid, Tom Welch, tried to talk me out of writing about the escalating budget? Or was it even earlier? “Maybe we should say the early 1990s,” I ended up telling the PR team.

I wish I’d had time to dig out the copies of those stories clipped from the Deseret News that I’m sure are somewhere in my basement. Mostly what I remember from Birmingham all these years later is thinking then that I’d enjoyed covering the bid while it lasted and expected to move on to another assignment since clearly this one was finished.

Instead, I’ve ended up writing about Utah and the Olympics for more than three decades. It’s taken me around the world, to every continent but Antartica. In 1995, I had a better view in Budapest, Hungary, of the bid team leaping out of their seats when then-IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch announced the 2002 Winter Games were going to “the city of Salt Lake City.”

There are plenty of other stories I could tell, too, like watching the world’s press descend on the IOC’s Lausanne, Switzerland, headquarters amid the escalating bribery scandal involving Salt Lake City’s 2002 bid. Or about talking with Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, then the leader of the 2002 Winter Games, as he drove past a smoldering Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

But what’s really stuck with me over the years is something I first wrote about 22 years ago, how much the Olympics can mean to those welcoming the world to their hometowns. That was most evident to me the morning after a bomb tore through a downtown park filled with thousands of people during the 1996 Atlanta Games, killing one and injuring more than 100.

As I recall, I was wandering around the mostly deserted streets nearby when I ran into a young family who wanted to see for themselves what someone — it turned out to be a domestic terrorist who wouldn’t be caught until 2003 — had done to their city before heading to see an Olympic event.

Here’s how I described our conversation in that March 2002 news story:

I asked them if they were afraid to be downtown. Although Olympic officials had said hours earlier that the Games would go on, no one could guarantee that the bomber wouldn’t strike again.
The night before, the streets had been filled with civilian and military authorities while helicopters buzzed overhead. I later described it as being as close to a war zone as I’d ever expected to see in the United States. Even in the daylight, the scene was eerie. Downtown was deserted as investigators descended on the now-closed park.
But the family said it was important for them to be there. Not just to attend the event they’d purchased tickets for but also to show their support for the Olympics, which had brought the world to their home.
They started asking me questions about what I thought of the Games, which had already been criticized for transportation and technology troubles, as well as for the tacky street vendors throughout downtown.
They also wanted to know what competitions I’d seen. None, I told them. My assignment was to cover organizational issues of the Games. I recall that we talked for a few more minutes, and then the family headed off to their event. Then one of them — I believe it was the mother — returned.
She asked me to take one of their tickets and go to the event with them. She told me I needed to see what the Olympics were really about and, well, have some fun.
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I didn’t accept her offer, but I’ll never forget it.
It showed me how much it means to residents of an Olympic city that visitors enjoy themselves and leave having some sense of what makes that city a special place to those who call it home.
What also stuck with me was the family’s determination to leave the safety of the suburbs that day. They didn’t want their empty seats to suggest that the bomber had succeeded in destroying the spirit of the Games.

And for the record, I still remember where I was when the bombing occurred around 1:20 a.m., sound asleep in my hotel room miles outside of Atlanta. I ended up catching a ride downtown with a member of a foreign TV crew that spoke no English and waited hours on the street for any news. Then we heard the media center was reopening for a news conference.

I was stuck in the middle of a huge mob of media from around the world waiting to get through a security checkpoint when the news conference was about to start. Somehow, I was spotted by a contact from the Atlanta organizing committee who whisked me into the media center.

So I was able to be there when Olympic officials announced the Games would continue, able to experience — and, hopefully, convey — the resilience it takes for a Games host to have invited the world to see not just sports competitions, but also a community and its values.

The Utahns who have worked so hard over the years to bring the Games to the state not just once, but now twice, have always believed this is the place that offers something special to the rest of the world. Their determination to showcase what they want others to love as much as they do about Utah is really what I’ve been covering all these years.

That’s also what I’ll be writing about as Utah gets ready for the 2034 Winter Games, collecting another decade of Olympic memories.

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Utah

POST-GAME: André Tourigny 3.22.26 | Utah Mammoth

Published

3 hours ago

March 23, 2026

Press Room

POST-GAME: André Tourigny 3.22.26 | Utah Mammoth

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Utah chef’s cake didn’t have enough booze, Food Network judges say

Published

15 hours ago

March 22, 2026

Press Room

Utah chef’s cake didn’t have enough booze, Food Network judges say

After hitting a snag and suffering through what he called “the biggest embarrassment” on national TV, chef Adalberto Diaz managed to narrowly avoid elimination during the premiere episode of Food Network’s “The Ultimate Baking Championship.”

“I’ll make you proud,” Diaz told the judges when the show revealed he would be claiming the final spot in the top 10 and moving forward in the competition.

But during the second episode of the season, the Utah chef behind the Salt Lake City bakery Fillings & Emulsions once again found himself in a far from ideal situation.

Adalberto Diaz faces criticism on ‘The Ultimate Baking Championship’

After an intense first episode that eliminated six of the top pastry chefs from across the country, Diaz found himself in the competition’s top 10.

The first challenge of the episode tasked the remaining bakers with putting a modern twist on a classic dessert. Diaz did OK in this round, creating strawberry shortcake canapés that put him in a three-way tie for fifth place with 11 points out of 20.

But like the premiere episode, things took a turn for the worse during the second challenge.

Diaz and his fellow bakers each had 2.5 hours to create a geometric layered mousse cake. The Utah chef’s specific assignment was to give his cake a tropical and boozy theme — something he said he felt confident about given his Cuban heritage.

The chef went to work creating a blueberry mojito gelée cake with mango mousse, topped off with a chocolate hibiscus flower. He gave it an ocean look with dark blue coloring.

In a blind taste test, celebrity guest judge and pastry chef Amaury Guichon said Diaz’s final product wasn’t the right interpretation for a boozy dessert. There wasn’t enough booze in the cake, both Guichon and judge Duff Goldman said. Guichon also criticized the amount of dark blue coloring Diaz used and said it wasn’t a natural look.

“This cannot be served in a restaurant,” Guichon said.

Chef Adalberto Diaz Labrada puts a batch of macarons into an oven in the kitchen of Fillings & Emulsions in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025. | Brice Tucker, Deseret News

Diaz, who was watching the judging on a screen in another room, became emotional as he heard the feedback.

He told his fellow pastry chef and competitor Juan Gutierrez that it hurt to get that kind of criticism on the show because as an older competitor, he doesn’t have as much time for improvement in his career as the younger chefs.

“We should be already there,” a visibly upset Diaz told Gutierrez.

After all of the judging, host Jesse Palmer revealed that Diaz was once again among the bottom competitors for the round. And, just like the premiere episode, the Utah chef ended up narrowly avoiding elimination.

Diaz received a 15 out of 30 for his cake, bringing his cumulative score for the episode to 26 points.

Oralia Perez, a pastry chef based in Houston, got eliminated from the competition with a cumulative score of 25.

Contestants Sarah Craichy, Christopher Teixeira, Rochelle Cooper, Clement Le Deore, Lasheeda Perry, Molly Coen, Robert Gonzalez, Oralia Perez, Juan Gutierrez, Arlety Estéves, Florencia Breda, Steven Weiss, Casey Doody, Cesar Sajulan, Julian Belon and Adalberto Diaz on Season 1 of “The Ultimate Baking Championship.” | Rob Pryce

Now, Diaz moves forward as one of nine remaining chefs competing for $50,000 in “The Ultimate Baking Championship.”

The show airs Monday nights on Food Network, with episodes available for streaming the following day on Discovery+ and HBO Max.

Who is Adalberto Diaz?

Diaz’s colorful macarons and fruit desserts are on display at Fillings & Emulsions in Salt Lake City — which the chef has described as an “eclectic Latin bakery with a French flair.”

“The last 12 years I have invested everything I have, everything, into my pastry shop,” Diaz said during “The Ultimate Baking Championship” premiere episode, which included footage of his new location that features bright murals painted by his brother to highlight their Cuban heritage.

Chef Adalberto Diaz Labrada hands customer Cameron Dryg a cup of coffee at Fillings & Emulsions in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025. | Brice Tucker, Deseret News

“When I win this competition, it will be a dream come true and that money is gonna go straight into my business and my amazing team of chefs and pastry chefs,” he said during the premiere episode. “I want to make sure that we make it out of these harsh economic times.”

Diaz emigrated from Cuba in 2000 and made a home in Utah, where he quickly began working in the food industry. He worked at a few places around Salt Lake City over the next decade, and earned the American Culinary Federation’s title of Pastry Chef of the Year in 2012. He opened Fillings & Emulsions the following year, as the Deseret News reported.

The chef’s appearance on “The Ultimate Baking Championship” comes on the heels of being nominated as a semifinalist for the prestigious James Beard award for outstanding pastry chef or baker.

“I am part of this community and this community has welcomed me to be part of it, and even bigger, this country welcomed me when I came here, and gave me an opportunity to be more where I am today,” Diaz told the Deseret News last year after his James Beard nomination. “And I wish that opportunity was given to more people because you don’t know how they would change the world.”

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Sixers-Jazz: What we learned from Saturday’s crucial win against Utah

Published

1 day ago

March 22, 2026

Press Room

Sixers-Jazz: What we learned from Saturday’s crucial win against Utah

The undermanned Sixers pulled away late in the fourth to take a 126-116 win over the Utah Jazz.

With the win, the Sixers jump all the way from ninth to seventh in the NBA’s Eastern Conference standings. Quentin Grimes led the Sixers with 25 points, and rookie VJ Edgecombe added 22, along with a team-high 13 rebounds.

“We stayed the course,” Sixers forward Trendon Watford said postgame. Watford would finish with 20 points. “It was an up-and-down game; they took the lead, and then we’d take the lead. We just had to grind it out, and that was big.”

Here’s what we learned from a late night in Salt Lake City…

» READ MORE: Andre Drummond fined for making an ‘objectional gesture’ during Sixers-Kings game

Dominick Barlow leaves the game

Barlow left the game in the first quarter with a leg injury that was later determined to be a left ankle sprain. He limped off the court and into the locker room, replaced by Jabari Walker. He played just four minutes and scored one point on Saturday before the injury.

The forward started the season on a two-way deal, and quickly worked his way into a regular role in the rotation. His contract was converted to a two-year standard contract on Feb. 5.

Barlow has averaged 8.3 points and 4.8 rebounds in 59 games this season. The Sixers announced in the second quarter that Barlow would not return after he suffered an ankle sprain.

The news nearly got even worse after Edgecombe also left the game late in the second quarter with an injury. He appeared to be off-balance heading into the locker room after taking an elbow to the face from Utah’s Kyle Filipowski.

But Edgecombe returned to the game out of halftime and put up another solid performance. The Sixers rookie finished with 22 points and 13 rebounds playing a team-high 38 minutes.

Turnovers blemish a win

The Sixers might have won the game, but they still didn’t play particularly well, especially against a team focused more on improving their lottery odds than winning.

They turned the ball over ten times in the first half, with three each from Watford and Grimes. Those turnovers left the Sixers behind the ball defensively, adding to the fact that four players sat on three fouls at halftime. Utah scored 16 points in the first half off 10 turnovers, compared to the Sixers’ two points off four turnovers.

Cam Payne’s coming along

Since returning to the Sixers and the NBA, Cam Payne has put up the best single-game performance of his career. However, since that game he’s also struggled to find consistency, especially from deep, now thrust into a larger role than he might have expected after injury to All-Star Tyrese Maxey.

After his 8-for-8 game from three in a 32-point outburst against the Memphis Grizzlies on March 10, Payne has shot just 24% from three over the last five entering Saturday’s game in Salt Lake City, as the Sixers collectively continue to struggle from behind the arc. But on Saturday, Payne found his shooting touch, going 3-for-7 from three and scoring 16 points in the win.