SALT LAKE CITY -- Two executives who headed Salt Lake City's bid to host the 2002 Winter Olympics go on trial Tuesday on charges of using bribery to help land the games.

Prosecutors say bid leader Tom Welch and deputy Dave Johnson gave $1 million in inducements ranging from cash to medical care to scholarships to International Olympic Committee delegates who eventually selected Utah to host the games.

The men don't dispute doling out the gifts, only the government's version of why they did it.

They insist it was the Olympic way of business, the way the game was played by other bid cities -- not bribery -- and that Utah's political and business elite knew what they were doing.

"It was open and notorious that people in the IOC were treated like royalty," Max Wheeler, Johnson's defense lawyer, told a federal magistrate who refused to dismiss the charges. "The point is, the line (was) never drawn."

The bribery scandal led to the resignation or expulsion of 10 IOC members, reprimands for others and a series of rule changes on bidding for Olympics.

Jury selection was to begin Tuesday. Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who is President Bush's embattled nominee to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is among those scheduled to testify.

The defendants were indicted in 2000 by a federal grand jury on 15 felony charges, including bribery racketeering, conspiracy and fraud. They have twice rejected the government's offer of a plea deal on a single count of tax fraud.

"I'm not looking for a deal and I don't expect one. Nor do I want one," said Welch, a 59-year-old business consultant.

The Justice Department insists the case boils down to "boldface bribes," not cordial gifts sealing friendships. To drive home the point, U.S. attorneys filed one nine-page court brief that used the word "bribery" nine times, often with emphatic modifiers like "outright" and "unmistakable."

"The United States has an interest in demonstrating that it will not tolerate corruption in the competition for the selection of host cities for the Olympic Games," Justice Department attorney Richard Friedman wrote in another brief.

In 2001, U.S District Court Judge David Sam found the case such a stretch for Olympic bidding he threw it out, sparing Salt Lake City the embarrassment of a courtroom spectacle leading up to the 2002 Games.

The success of the games, which brought home a record 34 medals and turned a $100 million profit, seemed to bury the vote-buying scandal.

Then in April of this year, the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver reversed Sam and ordered the bid leaders to stand trial. When Sam welcomed back lawyers this month for a pretrial conference, he said, "I never thought I'd see you again."

Welch and Johnson, 44, who now handles sales for a media company, received financial settlements from the Salt Lake Organizing Committee after their firings. The committee's insurer is paying millions of dollars for their legal fees.