You’d think Paralympic snowboarder Zach Miller was still at the 2026 Winter Games in Italy, given how he threw himself into a tug-of-war between sixth graders at South Jordan Elementary School’s field day Wednesday.
“One. Two. Three. ... pull,” he yelled at the top of his lungs as he and the students alongside him dragged their opponents, joined by Olympic snowboarder Faye Gulini Thelen, over a marker on the playground grass.
Miller said he wanted the hundreds of grade 3-6 students participating in the field day to “get out of their comfort zones” and experience firsthand the camaraderie that comes with competition.
“Field day was my favorite day in school, 100%. I think it was probably one of the major competitive things I did as a kid growing up,” the two-time world champion born with cerebral palsy said.
“I want to just have fun with these kids and show them that competition can be fun, win or lose,” said Miller, one of 14 Olympians and Paralympians who made a surprise appearance at the school along with organizers of Utah’s 2034 Winter Games.
“We want to inspire our rising generation,” said Fraser Bullock, president and executive chair of the Organizing Committee for the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. “This is just the beginning. You’ll see much more of this around the state.”
The organizing committee’s K-12 program, being developed with one of the $20 million donors to the organizing committee’s Podium34 fundraising effort, Ken Garff for Good, is expected to launch in some Utah schools this fall.
South Jordan sixth grader Lincoln Seely stood in line to get a “Utah 2034″ placard signed by athletes “because they’re really cool people and they do what they think is fun for them. They don’t do it for money or anything. They do it because it brings other people happiness.”
Seely, 12, who plays football, said he watched this year’s Olympics on TV. Seeing some of the same competitors from the Milan Cortina Games show up at his school “means a lot,” he said. “They signed my hat even.”
Olympic bobsledder Kaysha Love took time while signing autographs to ask students about their favorite sports and offer encouragement. Grade school, she said, was when her own Olympic dreams began.
”So to be out here, hanging out with them, giving autographs to hear their stories of their passion for sport makes me excited," she said, especially since the students are “growing up alongside the Olympics.”
That offers unique access to Olympians, said Love, who grew up in Herriman. “I couldn’t even imagine what it would have felt like to have an Olympic athlete come to my elementary school,” she said.
Later, as the field day activities that included inflatable obstacle courses and races were wrapping up, hands shot up when Love asked the assembled students who among them had dreams and goals.
“Don’t ever give up,” she told them.
Fourth grader Quinn Johnson, 10, said it had been exciting to meet the Olympians and Paralympians.
“I’m an athlete and I like being in soccer,” Johnson said. “It’s fun to see other athletes.”
