It appears that the Lake Tahoe area may make another run at bringing back the Winter Olympics. It’s been 50 years since the Winter Olympics were last held in the area – at Squaw Valley.

A Lake Tahoe organizing committee is now beginning to put together a bid package to try and secure the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Squaw Valley founder Alex Cushing worked tirelessly to bring the games to Squaw Valley. Now his widow, Nancy Cushing, is leading the move and organizing a committee to try and bring the games back to the Tahoe region in 2022.

This past weekend saw the start of the bidding process. Squaw Valley is hosting a 10-day Olympic Heritage Celebration. The goal is to begin a capital raising campaign to build a new Squaw Valley museum.

Back in October, the United States Olympic Committee officially ended the hopes of Reno-Lake Tahoe to host the 2018 Winter Olympics. The area has now failed in six attempts to secure the Winter Olympic games.

For the 2022 games, Olympic bids are due in 2012. By 2022 it will have been 20 years since the Winter Games were last held in the United States. Salt Lake City, Utah hosted the XIX Olympic Winter Games.

If Nancy Cushing is successful, the games in Lake Tahoe could be hosted by numerous world-class resorts around the scenic, Reno-Tahoe region.

The last time the Winter Olympics were held in Lake Tahoe was in 1960 at Squaw Valley.  Organizers of an effort to bring a future Winter Olympics to Reno and Lake Tahoe said Thursday they are encouraged by new poll results that show a majority of area residents support the idea.

The survey also revealed that the two primary reasons those were opposed and don’t want the Olympic Games here – traffic congestion during the events as well as problems related to construction leading up to them.

Fifty-one percent of those surveyed said they support or strongly support the idea of Reno-Tahoe hosting a future Olympic Winter Games while 31 percent said they do not or strongly do not, with 18 percent answering “not sure.”