The 2034 Winter Games may seem far off, but it’s not lost on the University of Utah’s Olympic planner that the incoming class of students expected to be on campus then will arrive in just three years.
“They are going to live through an amazing event they will remember for the rest of their life,” Scott Doughman, director of strategic initiatives and Olympic planning for the university, said Wednesday during a panel discussion at the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.
But many young Utahns are oblivious to what’s coming because they’re “disengaged socially,” he said, blaming social media and urging the audience gathered to hear about what’s ahead after the recently ended 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina, Italy, to help them get excited.
“They don’t quite comprehend what a big deal this is. Let’s let them see a bigger world because they are going to be a part of it,” said Doughman, who summed up the lessons he learned from attending the Italian Games as, “Plan early, plan early, plan early.”
The university has a big role to play in 2034. Just as the campus did when Utah hosted the 2002 Winter Games, student housing will be used for the athletes’ village and Rice-Eccles Stadium will be the site of both the opening and closing ceremonies.
Athlete families will also be housed on campus under a new initiative intended to make it easier for them to attend the Games, adding to what Doughman said was described in Italy as the “experience architecture” for Olympic athletes.
After touring one of Italy’s six athletes’ villages, he said he realized how much still needs to be done “to make sure we have our bases covered,” from coming up with places for athletes to store their gear and meet with sponsors to accommodating anti-doping controls.
All that comes as the University of Utah is undergoing a shift from a traditionally commuter campus to more of a residential “destination” campus, with plans for a “college town magic” district with stores, restaurants and other amenities.
“There’s no question that for the University of Utah, this is an opportunity in so many ways to evolve the brand of the university,” Doughman said of the upcoming Olympics and Paralympics for athletes with disabilities.
How Utahns can feel like hosts, not spectators in 2034
There’s plenty of work ahead for the other panelists, Jennifer Wesselhoff, Visit Park City’s president and CEO; Weber County Commissioner Jim Harvey; and Brad Wilson, CEO of the privately funded Organizing Committee for the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
Wesselhoff said in Milan, a “fan zone” with free Olympic-related activities for families and other opportunities for the public to feel part of the Games were “well-executed but they were also very contained.”
It was a different story in mountain resort towns like Cortina that hosted venues, she said.
“The sense of pride that overflowed into the communities and onto the streets was much more palpable than it was in Milan,” Wesselhoff said, something she wants to see in Park City, the site of multiple Games venues.
“We’re looking at adding our local culture, our spirit of hospitality, activating our downtown area and our Main Street, creating an experience really, where our residents feel like hosts rather than spectators,” she said, celebrations intended to last throughout the Games.
“Holding that momentum for 17 days is a heavy task and we want to give our community opportunities to interact with our visitors and our athletes,” Wesselhoff said. “It was really interesting to kind of see how to do that, and how we can do that better.”
The Games also can serve as a catalyst to diversify Park City’s cultural offerings now that the annual Sundance Film Festival is headed to Boulder, Colorado, after four decades in Utah, she said.
What another ‘stingy snow year’ would mean for Utah’s 2034 Games
There are a number of “improvements and enhancements” to the Olympic venues also used in 2002 that are critical, Wesselhoff said, including to snowmaking and storage capabilities after Utah’s “stingy snow year.”
Wilson said low snowfall totals wouldn’t stop the state from hosting.
“We can’t control the weather. So we’re going to try to adapt. If we had a winter in ‘34 like we have now, we absolutely could host the Games,” the organizing committee CEO said. “Would it be challenging? Yes. Are we prepared if it happens? Absolutely.”
Wesselhoff and Harvey both brought up how difficult it could be to get to events at the Milan-Cortina Games, dubbed the most widespread ever, with venues stretched across much of Northern Italy.
“We’ve got to get that right,” Wesselhoff said, calling it “an emotional experience” to travel to Cortina, located some five hours away from Milan. She said the Games can spur Park City’s transit projects.
The Weber County commissioner echoed her assessment.
“It was an emotional experience getting around there. That’s going to be an inside joke, unless (you) know what driving from Bear Lake to Logan is like anytime you want to do anything,” Harvey said.
With Snowbasin set to hold all the alpine skiing events in 2034, “transportation is our big thing,” Harvey said, ticking off a list of existing options including FrontRunner commuter rail service and promising “the little bit of a leg” that it takes to get to the ski area is being addressed.
Hosting a second Winter Games will be “one of the biggest moments we’ll have on the world stage,” Wilson said, for both Utahns and all Americans. “This is about Utah but it’s also about the United States.”
Despite the current political tensions in the world, he said Utah organizers were “welcomed with open hearts and open arms” during their time in Italy. “They love our country. They love America.”
Wilson asked members of the audience to “take pride in what we’re going to be doing,” and act as “an ambassador of Utah and who we are, the values we have and the commitment, the excitement we have to host the Games.”