If Colorado’s name is to be thrown into consideration for the 2022 Winter Olympics — and there’s a concerted, behind-the-scenes effort aimed at just that — everything from the bobsled track to the budget has to be figured out.

And relatively quickly.

That’s because those backing a plan to bring the Winter Games to Colorado may need to be ready to crank into action as soon as the fall of 2012 — and may have no more than a year to convince the U.S. Olympic Committee that they should be the next American host.

That reality plays out against a backdrop in which the USOC’s leadership is maintaining a public position that it is not entertaining future bids — a stance undertaken as protracted negotiations continue over the division of television and sponsorship money with the International Olympic Committee.

Those negotiations are expected to go on well into 2012, maybe longer.

But once those talks conclude — perhaps by next fall — the USOC is expected to reverse course and launch a process to find out whether there are viable sites in the United States to host the 2022 Winter Games and, if there are, pick one to nominate to the International Olympic Committee.

And that process would have to move fairly quickly since the IOC is expected to accept bids from interested nations by 2014 and announce its pick in 2015.

“If the USOC ever does decide to bid, we wouldn’t want to be in a position of coming at it cold,” said KieAnn Brownell, president of the Metro Denver Sports Commission. “We would want to have some understanding of the process.”

The commission, which uses the moniker “Denver Sports,” was created in 2001 for one purpose — to bring major sporting events to the Front Range, such as last winter’s Denver Big Air and next year’s NCAA Women’s Final Four.

And now part of its attention is focused on bringing the Winter Games to Colorado.

So it was that Brownell was in Lausanne, Switzerland, last week at an International Olympic Committee workshop for prospective bidders.

And Colorado, which was set to host the 1976 Winter Games until voters passed a measure banning the use of tax revenue to pay for the Olympics, figures to face competition from Reno-Lake Tahoe, Nev., and perhaps Salt Lake City.

A potential Colorado bid would have a lot going for it and would also face some challenges, including the possibility that the 1972 vote could come back to haunt the state.

For his part, IOC president Jacques Rogge, in Colorado Springs last month, insisted that the snub would not hurt the state in the future.

“There would definitely be no grudge for the fact that Denver abandoned the race,” Rogge told The Gazette.

Patrick Sandusky, the chief communications officer at the USOC, said he could not venture a guess as to the impact that history could have on a Colorado bid.

“At this point, as we’re not considering any cities for future Games bids, it would impossible for me to speculate on particular cities’ chances based on previous history,” Sandusky said.

Former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm, who as a young state legislator led the effort to get the tax question on the 1972 ballot, said a lot has changed since then — beginning with the finances. In the 1970s, it was common for host communities to be stuck with a huge bill. Since the Los Angeles Summer Games of 1984, many organizing committees have contended that they came out of the event in the black.

“The circumstances have changed,” Lamm said. “I have confidence in these organizers.”

But he also said that in Colorado, where anyone can gather signatures and get a measure on the ballot, the threat of another public vote looms.

“Some group of people — not me — have the power to come along and say, ‘Well, I don’t care what that is — we still need a vote of the people,” Lamm said. “It’s a problem for them.”

Whatever the ’72 hangover — if any — any group that decides to fight for a future Olympics will have to be prepared to answer a number of questions.

Some are big, such as how much money will have to be raised, and from where, to pay for the bid? Chicago, which sought the 2016 Summer Games but lost to Rio de Janeiro, spent an estimated $90 million on its failed effort.

Some questions are prickly, such as how far from Denver is too far for the mountain sports, such as downhill skiing?

Some are open-ended, such as where could an oval be built to host long-track speed skating — and what could it be used for after the Games?

Almost all of them include the same element: Money.

Money is at the heart of the ongoing revenue-sharing negotiations, which are aimed at determining what share of television revenue and sponsorships, the bulk of which come from inside the United States, should stay with the USOC and what share should be shared with the rest of the world.

As the two groups talk, everything is on hold, officially at least. Many of those with a stake in a Colorado bid declined to be interviewed, expressing concern about talking publicly at a time when the USOC is taking no steps toward determining a future American host.

Others, however, were open about the desire to make a major push for the Olympics.

“I think that what we’re doing now is what we’ve been doing for about 10 years, just building relationships, hosting events, doing things like that in order to sort of move Denver into a circle of consideration,” Denver Sports’ Brownell said.

When the possibility of a bid is real, she said, it will be important to be prepared to move.

She’s not alone.

Mike Moran, who spent a quarter- century as the USOC’s chief spokesman, said he believes it is not a matter of “if” the USOC will entertain bids but “when” — and for which Games.

“When it is settled, first thing you will see is not only a welcomed bid by the USOC but conversely a winning bid,” Moran said. “It just remains to be seen when they’ll be ready to choose a city and for which Games, summer or winter. I think any city the USOC puts up is automatically the leader in the clubhouse.”

Colorado, he believes, has a lot of things going for it, from its modern airport to its convention center to its relatively new sports arenas. And it has the experience of hosting other major events, such as the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

He has gone so far as to imagine the 2022 Olympics — from opening ceremony in Coors Field to figure skating at the Pepsi Center and long-track speed skating as an imagined arena that could serve as the future home of the University of Denver hockey team.

Moran said Brownell and others working to put Colorado in a position to win a future Olympics are formidable.

“This is not some daydream,” Moran said. “I think they’re very, very serious about getting the Games, and I think they have all the resources to do it.”

In Switzerland last week, Brownell sat through presentations by other cities that have recently been awarded the Olympics — cities such as Sochi, Russia, site of the 2014 Winter Games, and Rio de Janeiro, set to host the 2016 Summer Games.

And in each presentation, there was a video clip — the moment the winning bid was announced.

Brownell allowed herself to imagine a moment like that in the future, one that ends with the words, “Denver, Colorado.”

“It definitely is fun to dream about that,” she said. “But there’s definitely a lot of water under the bridge before we get to that point.”

Olympic Stadium

One of the major hurdles in winning a bid to host the 2022 Olympics is providing the appropriate venues for the events. As efforts to secure the Games are already underway in Colorado, several options are taking shape:

Options: Sports Authority Field at Mile High or Coors Field

Something to think about: Both facilities are built and paid for. Sports Authority Field may not be viable because the Denver Broncos may still be playing in it long after the deadline for turning it over to Olympic organizers. At Salt Lake City, the Olympic organizers took control of Rice-Eccles Stadium on the University of Utah campus on Nov. 25, 2001. Sports Authority Field seats 76,125, and Coors Field 50,445.

Comparable: Rice-Eccles Stadium had a seating capacity of 56,000, and BC Place Stadium in Vancouver had a seating capacity of 55,000.

Snow sports

Options: Lots of them — Beaver Creek and Winter Park, to name two

Something to think about: Beaver Creek is set to host a men’s World Cup race in December, so that’s easy as a location for alpine skiing. Steamboat Springs already has Howelsen Hill, where scores of Olympic ski jumpers have trained. Options abound for cross-country skiing and biathlon. And constructing a moguls run, jumps and a half-pipe for the freestyle and aerials competitions would be relatively easy. The rub in almost every case is going to be the distance from Denver — how much is too much?

Comparable: In Salt Lake, alpine events were held about 35 miles from town, but in Vancouver, the downhill skiing was at least a two-hour drive from town.

Figure skating and short-track speed skating

Options: Pepsi Center

Something to think about: The building is modern and standing and paid for — definite pluses. It would probably have to get a temporary name change (Coke is the longest continuous Olympic sponsor).

Comparable: In Salt Lake City, what was then known as the Delta Center was christened the Salt Lake Ice Center for the Games.

Curling

Options: 1st Bank Center in Broomfield

Something to think about: The building exists, seating (6,500) is more than adequate, and it would spread the Olympic wealth into the suburbs.

Comparable: In Salt Lake, curling was held at an arena 35 minutes from the city that seated 2,000.

Hockey

Options: Magness Arena on the University of Denver campus (6,315 seats) would definitely work for preliminary rounds, as would the Colorado Springs World Arena, which seats 8,000. Neither may be large enough to stage the medal games.

Something to think about: Could the hockey finals be squeezed into the Pepsi Center around figure skating and short-track speed skating? Perhaps. Could one of those arenas be expanded or the 1st Bank Center in Broomfield be used? Again, perhaps.

Comparable: The “E” Center in West Valley City, Utah, was built for a minor-league hockey team and hosted the finals of men’s and women’s hockey. It seated 8,500.