Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said he’s heading to the 2026 Winter Games that begin Feb. 6 in Milan-Cortina, Italy, so he can learn firsthand what its going to take to ready the state for the Olympic spotlight in eight years.
“This is an opportunity for us to see the operations of a Winter Olympics,” Cox told the Deseret News, adding he plans “to really dive in to kind of the behind-the-scenes part. The events are great and that’s all wonderful, but that’s not what’s interesting or necessary for me.”
Instead, he said, “it’s how do those take place, what happens to move people from Point A to Point B. What are the technology operations, security operations. Those are the types of things we’ll be focusing on.”
The governor is among more than 100 Utah government, community and Olympic leaders who’ll be in Italy to observe one of the two Winter Games being held before the state hosts the 2034 Olympics and Paralympics that follow for athletes with disabilities.
There’s already been a Winter Games in Utah, in 2002. But this year’s Winter Games in Milan-Cortina, and those coming to the French Alps in 2030, are seen as a chance to experience how much has changed since then.
Utah’s Organizing Committee for the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games is coordinating four waves of activities in Italy centered around the International Olympic Committee’s observer program for future hosts.
“Observer visits are not VIP. They’re working,” said Darren Hughes, vice president for operations and planning of the 2034 Utah Games. “They involve some pretty taxing days. Some of these are nine or even 11 hours. ... They’re as thorough as possible.”
During his week in Milan, the governor is expected to get a detailed look at the 2026 Games command center as well as one of the six athlete villages and the back-of-the-house operations at some of the competition venues.
Other state and local government officials as well as tourism promoters will also participate in the program. Some, like longtime Utah Department of Transportation Executive Director Carlos Braceras, will be in Italy before the Games begin.
“I’m going to be meeting with the different transportation agencies to talk about what their planning was. During (the Games), it’s really hard for those folks to break away and talk to outsiders,” said Braceras, who was a UDOT deputy director in 2002.
He said it takes years to prepare to get everyone where they need to go during an Olympics. Utah is already working on a list of major transportation projects ahead of 2034, including double-tracking the FrontRunner commuter rail line and expanding I-15 in Salt Lake and Davis counties.
Braceras said he’s especially interested in how technology will be used in Italy, describing the state of the art in 2002 as having enough cables to link laptops to projectors for a series of in-person presentations explaining planned traffic disruptions.
“I guarantee you we’re going to learn things we had no idea to ask about or think about,” he said.
What Utah’s governor wants to tell the world about the state
A news conference in Milan with Utah’s Olympic organizers is tentatively scheduled during the first few days of the Games to introduce the thousands of reporters there from around the world to the Beehive State.
The message that the governor would deliver about Utah’s next Winter Games?
“I’d want to focus on the fact that we’re ahead of schedule. That we’re prepared, looking at what we’ve done in the past and building on those successes,” he said, including ensuring every venue is within an hour of the athlete housing at the University of Utah.
Distance is a downside of the Milan-Cortina Games, the first to be hosted by two different locations, a major city and a mountain resort that’s more than a half-day’s drive away, with events scattered throughout northern Italy.
“It’s almost impossible to get to all of the different venues,” Cox said. “You kind of have to pick. Are you going to do mountain stuff? Are you going to do the ice events? Here you don’t have to make that choice. You can do all of it.”
He also wants the world to know that sets Utah apart from other Winter Games hosts.
The Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Summer Games in Paris were criticized by Cox and others over a segment viewed as mocking the biblical Last Supper. The governor said he doesn’t expect to have any similar concerns about Italy.
“I do love that every Games has the local culture and the local flavor involved,” he said. “I know some people didn’t appreciate that about Paris, but Paris was being Paris. That’s the great thing about this, is we get to be us. We’re not Paris. We’re not Italy. We’re Utah.”
In 2034, the governor said Utah will be showcased as a worldwide leader in technology that offers natural beauty and a cultural heritage that includes Native Americans as well as pioneers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who settled the state.
“You don’t go to the Vatican and not see the church, right? It’s certainly part of who we are and part of what we share. But it’s not the only thing,” Cox said. “One of the things that makes Utah so unique is our diversity that a lot of people don’t realize exists here.”
Utah, not Salt Lake City, is taking the lead in the state’s next Winter Games, recently formally rebranded as “Utah 2034″ with the unveiling of a new logo that even the governor has suggested is too bold for his conservative tastes.
First update on Utah’s Olympic progress
Before the Milan-Cortina Games start, IOC members will see the new logo during the Utah organizing committee’s first formal presentation on their progress over the past 1½ years. They’ll have 20 minutes during the IOC’s two-day session.
“We want to communicate we’re on a successful path,” said Fraser Bullock, the organizing committee’s president and executive chair, including outlining plans for 2026. “I think the best phrase to capture it is, ‘Stay ahead.’”
Bullock, chief operating officer for the 2002 Games, said there will be plenty to glean from Milan-Cortina, given what’s behind organizing an Olympics and Paralympics. While a typical company has seven or eight functional areas to oversee, he said the Games have 48.
“There’s nothing else like it. It’s the most complex thing in the world to do,” Bullock said. “The public just sees mostly the field of play and the great competitions. That’s the way it should be. The complexity and work that goes on behind the scenes is mind-boggling.”
The price tag for putting on the 2034 Winter Games is $4 billion, money that’s expected to be raised entirely from private sources, largely through the sale of broadcast rights, sponsorships and tickets. Donors are playing a big role, too, already pledging more than $200 million.
What the 2034 Winter Games can do for Utah
Gail Miller, co-founder of the Larry H. Miller Company and the chair of the family foundation giving $20 million to the organizing committee, is among the Podium34 donors going to the Milan-Cortina Games.
There, she and several other donors, including David Huntsman, CEO of the Huntsman Family Foundation, will participate in the final days of Italy’s Olympic torch relay to help promote what they hope their financial support will enable Utah’s next Winter Games to accomplish.
“For me, it will be a matter of how can what I’m involved in make our community more cohesive,” Miller said. “How can we bring back the best of the best, and help our population know how important this is as a community to bring us together.”
She and her late husband, Larry, both carried the Olympic torch ahead of the 2002 Games in Utah. Then, as now, Miller was struck by the meaning of the flame traditionally lit in Olympia, Greece, and carried to the Opening Ceremony of a Games.
“This is something that lights the world and keeps that flame of passion among its inhabitants alive, so we are connected in important things,” she said, a symbol of how Utahns can hone in on the next Olympics as a catalyst for improving their state.
Miller said the 2034 Games are “not just an event. It’s a point in time that changes opportunity and direction for a lot of people. And if we use that in the right way, and go in the right direction, then that’s worth all the work and all the difficulty ... and everyone benefits.”
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall will leave for Italy a little later than much of the Utah delegation, so she can kick off the city’s series of daily downtown Olympic watch parties with big-screen TVs, food and entertainment scheduled throughout the Milan-Cortina Games.
“That is going to be an extravaganza of fun,” Mendenhall said. In November, she pitched the idea of holding similar gatherings to city leaders from around the country as a low cost way to be part of what’s being called America’s decade of sport.
In Italy, the mayor said she wants to how cities are involving locals in the Games. It was seeing how Paris-area communities put together neighborhood “live sites” during the 2024 Summer Games that inspired Salt Lake City’s watch parties, Mendenhall said.
Her role in the organizing of Utah’s next Games is as an adviser, including as chair of a host communities committee. But Mendenhall said she expects to return with plenty of inspiration to share, including from the Utah capital’s sister city, Torino, host of the 2006 Winter Games.
“We’ll see what’s next,” the mayor said. “In Utah, host cities are endeavoring to engage our residents early to find out how we want to not only build the legacy but experience the excitement of the Olympics and Paralympics while they’re here.”
