When Utah first hosted the Winter Olympic Games in 2002, many residents of the Wasatch Back town of Midway weren’t interested in joining the festivities, despite the nearby cross-country skiing venue.
But Midway Mayor Celeste Johnson says they’re all in for the 2034 Winter Games.
“I have polled people up in Midway about 2002 and, to a person, I have learned that Midway was virtually sidetracked for 2002, by their design,” said Johnson, who lived in Sandy during the state’s previous Olympics.
Given the tiny town’s concern then about the impact of an influx of Olympic visitors, the Olympic transportation system avoided Midway in 2002, busing in ticket holders to Olympic events at Soldier Hollow from a parking lot near the Heber Valley Airport.
Now they regret missing out, the mayor said.
The site of the popular annual Swiss Days heritage celebration, the town of about 6,000 people has a very different attitude about the Olympic events that will take place at the nearby Wasatch Mountain State Park, at the Soldier Hollow Nordic Center.
“They want to be part of it this time. They want to have those experiences. Obviously, they want to make sure that we can support them,” Johnson said, speaking to reporters Tuesday after a closed-door meeting in Soldier Hollow between area officials and Utah’s Olympic organizers.
‘Listening tour’ by organizers of Utah’s 2034 Winter Games
The meeting is the second in what the Organizing Committee for the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games is calling a “listening tour” to find out what venue communities and eventually other groups want from another Olympics.
Even before the International Olympic Committee named Utah the site of the 2034 Winter Games nearly a year ago, state and local leaders were starting to look at how proposed projects, such as mass transit improvements, could benefit from hosting again.
While the organizing committee’s privately funded $4 billion budget is solely for putting on the Olympics and then the Paralympics for athletes with disabilities in 2034, government spending is expected to pick up to meet infrastructure and other needs, as happened in 2002.
“Growth in general is something we have to be able to support, whether it’s the Olympics or not,” Johnson said when asked about infrastructure and other civic improvements being sought for Midway ahead of 2034.
She suggested the alpine-themed town square could serve as a place to award Olympic medals, or broadcast Winter Games events from other parts of the state. Utah organizers have expressed interest in replicating the “live sites” held throughout Paris during the 2024 Summer Games.
New athlete housing for Soldier Hollow?
Something else could be coming to the area, permanent athlete housing.
The possibility of the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation providing housing at Soldier Hollow was among the topics discussed Tuesday. The foundation, created to maintain 2002 Olympic venues, has built a 72-unit residence for athletes and staff at Utah Olympic Park near Park City.
Utah’s successful bid to host a second Olympics once again emphasized the state’s ability to rely once again on a single Athletes Village at the University of Utah because all of the venues are located within an hour of the student housing on the campus.
But the International Olympic Committee commission that visited Utah in April 2024 to evaluate the 2034 bid noted in their report that there were plans to “offer optional athlete accommodations for high-altitude athletes in Heber City,” at existing resort properties.
Heber City Mayor Heidi Franco welcomed the idea of permanent athlete housing.
“We’ve already had athletes living in our community for a couple of decades, right? They live here. They train here. And they really enjoy the community here,” Franco said. Heber City’s Olympic-related plans include a highway bypass to take trucks off Main Street.
Midway is looking at code and ordinance changes to allow locals to open up their homes during the Olympics to athletes and their families, coaches and support staff, Johnson said, whether or not they choose to charge rent.
“Midway obviously is contiguous to Soldier Hollow and we claim Soldier Hollow as being ours. Whether it technically is or not is beside the point,” she said. “We are happy to have the Olympics coming.”
Brad Wilson, the organizing committee’s CEO, said it’s clear area residents “embrace the rural lifestyle but also this amazing combination of the Olympic Games being hosted in this community.”
At the meeting, Wilson said organizers “heard that the 2002 Games ushered in a season of growth in this community that was probably coming but may have been accelerated because of it. The Olympics in 2034 were viewed as an opportunity.”