With the 2026 Winter Olympics underway in Italy, four-time Olympic speedskater Catherine Raney Norman joins Sheri Dew, the executive vice president of Deseret Management Corporation, on the “Deseret Voices” podcast to discuss what it’s like to reach that crowning event.
Raney Norman was 17 when she represented her country in the 1998 Games in Japan. Some of her records still stand 20 years later.
Her impact on the Olympics continues as vice president of development and athlete relations for Utah 2034 as she aims to help other athletes achieve their dreams of Olympic glory.
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Note: Transcript edited by Steven Watkins
Sheri Dew: Cat, I was so thrilled to get to talk to you and go in-depth a little bit about some of your Olympic experience personally. And then, of course, you’re intimately involved with the 2034 Games. They’re coming back to Utah.
Catherine Raney Norman: Well, I’m grateful to be here, so thank you so much for asking me to come in and share a little bit more.
SD: Well, we’re thrilled. This is a treat for us. Let’s make sure everybody knows about your background. We were talking before we started and you said, “Oh, you’ve Googled me.” And the story is pretty great. The more I read, the more I thought, “Wow, I thought I knew everything that you had done.” And I certainly had my knowledge increase. So you’re a four-time Olympian? Starting in 1998, in Japan?
CRN: Yes. Very first Games, 17 years old, still in high school at the time.
SD: Then Salt Lake in 2002.
CRN: Yeah. First time again. So fortunate to have the opportunity to compete in a home country.
And really transformational experience.
SD: OK, we’ll come back and talk about that because I want to know more about that.
Let’s see, then Italy in 2006.
CRN: Italy in ’06 was a kind of a breakout Games for me in terms of my athletic and performance side of things. Every Games was great.
SD: Then we capped it with ’10. 2010 Vancouver.
CRN: Yep. Yeah, Vancouver. It was so interesting for me with Vancouver, I had trained in Canada for about six and a half, seven years.
And so it was almost a little bit like a second home or a second home Games and the accessibility for family to be able to be there. So, yeah, it was a good one as well.
SD: So accessibility for family because you’re from Wisconsin.
CRN: I grew up just outside of Milwaukee in a kind of small town and village, and a Midwest girl where people always kind of ask, like, how did you get into skating?
And I was like, well, it’s kind of what we do there, right? Like, I learned to skate on a pond across the street from my house. We had a shopping mall that had an ice rink in it. Like, that’s just what you learn to do when you grow up in the Midwest as you learn to skate. And there’s a deep history and culture of skating in the Midwest on speedskating side.
SD: So I want to know how you knew you were good because you went on to — I think you still hold three U.S. records. Do you still hold them?
CRN: I’m actually I am down to two. One of them got broken about three weeks ago. My 3,000-meter record was just broken. About three weeks ago by one of our up and coming athletes on Team USA, Greta Myers. So, bittersweet as always. You always have that little competitive fire in you still. But I’m really excited to see that sort of talent coming through on our team side and seeing those records are, it’s time for them to come down.
SD: Well, and you held it a long time.
CRN: Yeah.
SD: I mean over 20 years. So isn’t that incredible. And you still hold the records in the 5,000, in the 10,000, correct?
CRN: Correct. Yeah.
SD: Which is again, over 20 years.
CRN: Yeah. They’re over 20 years old.
SD: So just to complete, to make sure, you were a World Cup team member every year from ’97 to 2010. Inducted into the U.S. Speedskating Hall of Fame in ’18, 2018. Hold six Allround titles.
CRN: Yeah.
SD: Is that right?
CRN: Yeah.
SD: Wow. How did you know? When did you know? Gosh, maybe I have a shot at this? Because last night I went to AI and said, “What percentage of the U.S. population becomes an Olympian?” It is, I don’t even know how to say this number: .00018%. It’s roughly 1 in every 550,000 individuals to become an Olympian.
CRN: Yeah.
SD: And I did not go to AI and said, well, how many people hit the Olympics four times? When did you know you were good? Did you figure it out? Did your parents? Did … how’d that work?
CRN: You know, I loved watching the Olympics as a kid growing up. And I remember skaters, and I started as a figure skater, and I remember watching Debi Thomas and Katarina Witt and Kristi Yamaguchi, and I was like, I want to be them.
And, so I used to get up early in the morning and practice figure skating in the morning, and then there were a group of short track skaters. So those are the ones that race on the hockey rink. They would skate on the outside of me and they challenged me to a race. It was a group of boys that challenged me to a race, and I raced them and I won. And they went over to my mom and they were like, “She’s good.”
And again, in the Midwest, speedskating, it is a hotbed, it is a thing. You know, legends like Bonnie Blair, Dan Jansen, Eric Heiden, like —
SD: They all come from there, from Wisconsin.
CRN: Yeah. And they were like, “She needs to try speedskating.” And so I started to get into speed skating and I just loved it. I loved going fast. I loved that it was me against the clock. No other variable, right, like it was all on me if I was going to perform or not. And I love the competition and I just set my mind, I always wanted to go to the Olympics. And my like third grade teacher has like something that I wrote about wanting to go to the Olympics even, actually.
And so I just I set my mind to it. And my parents were so great and I went to a small school. They were great with my schedule and just, I started to progress. And in ’98, I mean, I was not slotted to make that team. I was not expected in any way, shape or form. I’d actually only been speedskating for about four years at that point in time.
SD: And again, you were 17.
CRN: And I was 17, and I made the team, and it was really unexpected.
And I was like, “Oh, this is like amazing.” And I went on to have a really successful couple of years as a junior athlete, competing on the senior circuit, competing at the junior levels, having, really successful performances and records and world championships and all that sort of stuff. And that’s when I started to kind of know that I was I was good, but I will probably honestly didn’t take me until I retired.
And as we kind of sit here where I now can realize, like, oh, I was actually really good, because I think as an athlete you’re always thinking about how can you improve, right? How can you do better? And you’re always, you know, who else is around you and what are they doing? And how do I make sure, like, you always, I always had to kind of prove to myself, even, and encourage myself.
So it took me a long time to realize, like, oh, I was actually really good.
SD: So talk to the other 550,000 of us per 1 who don’t become an Olympic athlete. What’s it take? And for such a span?
CRN: Yeah, it takes obviously a lot of sacrifice for sure as an individual and even as a family, right. It takes a lot of sacrifice. You know, you think about being 17 years old, right? I was not doing the after school sports. I wasn’t going to the school dances, I was traveling, I wasn’t in school that much, right? Like, you sacrifice that sort of those early years of your childhood. And again, I’m so grateful. I went to a small school, because everybody knew what I was doing.
And at that — my first Olympic trials — my whole class came out, right? So I still had that connection, which was great. But, you know, you sacrifice as you’re continuing on. And our athletes do this today too, right? They put sport, they put these dreams in front of their education, in front of their professional career, in front of their financial stability even, right?
And it’s all to chase this dream. And so it takes a lot of sacrifice in that regard, kind of from all elements of your life. It obviously takes a lot of hard work, right? I used to have my voicemail on my phone. Used to be, “I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone right now. I’m out living the dream,” right?
And it was because I was on my bike for four or five hours a day. And you’re riding up the different canyons here. And so it takes obviously a lot of physical, physical drive and, and capacity. But I think it also takes really for that duration, a true love of the sport, and a true ability to have fun and what you’re doing. And what I always said to people was, the day I stop having fun is when I’m going to retire, when it starts to become a chore.
And that’s kind of something that I’ve always shared with young kids that are coming up, whether I’ve coached them or not. You have to have fun at this, in doing this, because it is hard, right? The sacrifices you make, the physical pain that you go through, the mental toughness that you have to have, like, you have to have fun because there will be days that you don’t want to do it, right?
But if you can come back and have that fun and passion, you’ll keep pushing yourself through.
SD: So how do you think you think about all that that did at a pretty young age? Because it’s not like you started skating at 17. You said you’ve been skating for four years.
CRN: Yeah.
SD: In speedskating. So now we’re talking 13.
CRN: Yeah. And before that I figure skated.
SD: OK. So what do you think all that did to mold you? And how do you think that affected your development as a human, as a woman?
CRN: Yeah. I think a couple of things, you know, one, I think I showed myself obviously that if I put my mind to it, like I’m willing to put the work in by far, I’m always willing to put the work in.
You know, as I grew as an athlete, as I traveled the world, and a little bit tying into that or to experience we I, I learned, obviously different cultures how to engage with different cultures and different cultural norms in that regard. I learned the importance and primarily this was the effect of ’02 for me was the importance of representing your country and what it means to have those three letters on your back.
It’s more than just an individual performance by far. It really is. And those are things that I continue to carry through today and, the hard work side of things, the recognizing that you’re, you know, I’m in a position to be a role model, to be a representative of my community and the responsibility … and a mentor and the responsibility that that carries as well.
And I welcome that. I really, genuinely welcome that. And I’m grateful for that. I will say, I think some of the things that I learned through sport, where I was so hard on myself nowadays, even now as I’m a working mom, and I’ve now understand the importance of giving yourself grace and humility.
And so it’s just fascinating sort of the different ways and experiences that you have in your life that as it changes you, as you kind of go through.
SD: So I’m picturing just years of intensity.
CRN: Yes.
SD: Everything from training to the mental training to everything, right? It’s just intense.
CRN: Yes.
SD: So when you decided that, OK, I’ve done four Olympics, all these raft of awards. You must have a room full of medals and ribbons and plaques and —
CRN: Mom and dad’s house.
SD: OK, great. What’s it like then when you stop and say, OK, I’m done competing, because that’s been your life?
CRN: It’s daunting, right? Because your life has been I mean, I can still tell you everything I did on a Monday and on Tuesday, on a Wednesday, on a Thursday, on a Friday. And it drove you because I knew exactly what my schedule was exactly the time frames, what I was doing, right?
So everything was so structured, right? And when you step away, you lose that structure and it is a challenge for a lot of athletes. And I’m not going to say it wasn’t a challenge for me either. It was definitely a challenge, right? Because you go from here, being at the very top and having all of this, to all of a sudden you’re down and you’re catching back up with everyone else and figuring out what and figuring out who you are as a person, what your identity is and all of that.
And so it is definitely, it was hard for me. But I know many of our athletes struggle with this, and this is something that I’ve always tried to be helpful and help to champion, as well as that transition for our athletes. I’ll share that for me. When I started to make that transition, I, you know, I started, I was like, OK, I have to have a plan.
Like, I’m so used to having a plan. So it was going back to school. Then it was finding an internship and all of those things. But I was doing that at 30 years old —
SD: Not 20?
CRN: Not 20, right. Coming in with very different perspectives. But I will say the moment — I will never forget the moment I realized I made the right decision in terms of retirement was, it was the first fall that I wasn’t racing.
And I remember because my teammates were racing their first kind of practice races of the year. It was a Saturday morning, and I remember being at my house and I was relaxed and I was like, OK, I’m OK with this, right? Like, I’m good with sleeping in. I’m good with getting to go and do something else on a Saturday.
Like, I knew I made the right decision at that point in time. And so from then on it was, OK, now what am I going to do next, right? How do I channel that same passion that I had for so many years into something new? And that, I think, is so critical, especially for athletes. Athletes are passion-driven people.
They have high expectations of themselves and others. And so finding the right way to channel that was was sort of my next move.
SD: So one thing you did, among others, is you threw yourself into the Olympic movement.
CRN: I did.
SD: And you’ve been deeply involved. Talk about that. When did you move to Utah and become involved in, maybe we can bring the Games back here again. Because our 2002 Games were, I think, by every measure, very successful.
CRN: They were. Yeah.
SD: And you mentioned earlier that they were impactful for you. Tell us why and then throwing yourself into this movement.
CRN: Yeah. So I spent my last four years of my career training here in Utah. You know, starting to set my roots —
SD: Getting ready for Vancouver, getting ready for 2010.
CRN: Exactly. Getting my roots here, here in Utah. And, throughout my, you know, athletic career and then post career, I always and even today, I’ve always been an advocate for athletes. I am such a firm believer that we have this sort of duty of care to try to pave a better way for the next generation coming through. And so, I, as a competing athlete, and then once I retired, I was involved in sort of the athlete voice in athlete structure and was an athlete representative for the speedskaters, went on to then and vice chair, the counsel for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
So all athletes, all sports, all disciplines, Olympic and Paralympic and, through that kind of work that I was doing on the Olympic side and kind of giving back, we started to have rumblings here in Utah, like, we want to bring a Games back and how can we do that? And so Gov. Herbert was gracious enough to sort of tap me and say, “Hey, we want you to come and have a seat at the table and be the voice of the athlete for us.
“You’re so connected in with all athletes from across the country, right? Come and share your perspective with us.” And so that was really kind of the first stepping stone for me into bringing these Games back here to Utah. And how could I lend my voice and perspective, to the athlete side of things and making sure that we deliver a Games that is very athlete-centric because I feel this real duty.
And, I try to implore this on everyone, especially having had the lived experience, right? We are truly the caretakers and stewards of these athletes’ dreams, right? Those dreams that started when they were 8 and 9 years old.
SD: It’s a beautiful way to think about it, I love that.
CRN: But we are stewarding these dreams of these athletes.
SD: Making it possible really.
CRN: Exactly. The moment that they have dreamed about from when they were a child to, you know, 18, 24 or 25 years old, we are the ones who are creating that canvas for them. When that moment happens, when they step to the line and they, the gun goes off and they officially are an Olympian, right? That’s our job, is to create that for them.
I’m grateful to you know, Governor, for tapping me on the shoulder at that moment, to be a part of that and to then stay, stay involved.
SD: So your official title, if I have it right, is that you’re — for the ’34 Games. The ’34 Utah Games — that you are the vice president of development and athlete relations. What does that mean?
CRN: So I’ll go back a little bit. OK. So during our bid phase, Gov. Cox, kind of similar to Gov. Herbert, tapped me on the shoulder and said, “We want you to chair this.” And I always joke because he called me. And it was during the pandemic. And, you know, I was like shuttling my child to day care. And I say, “Governor, I’m dressed for day care.” “It’s OK.”
And during that process, you know, we were putting all of the requirements together for the International Olympic Committee to help them make a decision. And throughout that, one of the questions that they had to ask was, tell us your financial model. You know, if we are going to award these Games earlier than we normally would, what is your financial model look like?
And typically a Games is funded around ticketing and hospitality and sponsorship, right? And Utah’s in a unique position because the Games were awarded earlier. Los Angeles is hosting, all of those things. We actually can’t go into the commercial market space. And so I sat down at the time with our CEO, Fraser Bullock, and my background has been in philanthropy and in fundraising, and that’s kind of the course I took after competing and being involved in Games and all that sort of stuff.
I said, you know, we have an amazing group of community leaders and champions and business leaders who might have an interest in being involved. And we started this initiative called Podium34 and really starting to bring our community in to help raise race funds and raise dollars to stand up our organizing committee. To launch our early impact initiatives, which is, I think, so vital and so critical and part of our kind of core, why, we know these Games can have an impact, and we’re in a very privileged position that we can focus on impact more so than we have to focus on construction of venues. And so my role now is as vice president of development is to help to steward those individuals, steward those gifts, help to continue to raise funds, to help support the OCOG. And then on the athlete relations side, working with all of — I always call them my athletes — working with my athletes and teammates in helping to ensure that the athlete voice is incorporated into our decision-making.
And to go back to that kind of core value of: we are really stewarding their Games and their dreams, creating the most optimized experience for them.
SD: So it seems like, again, having the Games come back to Utah affords some unusual opportunities and privileges that weren’t here the first time —
CRN: 100%.
SD: How would you? And not to mention the fact that they were awarded far enough in advance to actually do something about. And with that block of time, how would you describe what you hope happens because of this extra time and the fact we’ve done it before? I think there’s a different mindset a little bit about what they can accomplish. Help us understand that.
CRN: You know, the Games have really honestly, they have very much so evolved since ’02 as well. I would say there is obviously the focus on sport, right? But there’s also, I think, as we’ve seen and I would say ’02 was the catalyst in this area, the impact that it can have on community. And so in ’02, you know, we were obviously very focused. We were new at this and very focused on venues.
Making sure the busses were going to run and the lights, the logistics things, right? And we were successful. And then we had this incredible legacy that happened afterwards, right? A lot driven by the financial success of, ’02 where venues were staying open. They are more vibrant than they’ve ever been. Families can participate in sports, kids can participate in sports.
And that has really again, it propelled us into this position to be able to host again. But it’s also propelled us into the position of thinking about impact, right? And recognizing that we are in a place of privilege compared to other hosts. We can really think about what we can do for our community, right? And that is the broader scheme of the Games, because as you kind of you shared, right, like 1 in 550,000, you get to be an Olympian, right?
We got to think about all of the others as well and how they can be a part of this. And that to me is one of the most exciting things. It’s probably one of the most fragile things that we can’t waste either. Waste the opportunity. But I really think about, obviously our kids and how can they be inspired by the Games, how can they participate in the Games, as we’re, you know, heading into Milan Cortina and, I’m getting a lot of school requests right now to come in and talk to kids, which is fantastic.
And sharing with them just how diverse, again, this is, right? Not every kid is going to make the team or the sports team or anything. But I was at a school two weeks ago and I said, “OK, well, let’s talk about the science of sport.” They were like, “What do you mean, the science of sport?” And I was like, “Well, do you know that there’s a difference between manmade snow and natural snow and how that affects the skis and the wax on the skis, how fast the athletes go?
“Let’s talk about their uniforms, right? And how much wind resistance there is with their uniforms and how they, why they wear certain things, right? It’s the science of sport, guys, right? You don’t just have to be an athlete, right? Let’s talk about nutrition.” So many different facets. And these kids, their eyes just opened up, right?
And so for me again, kind of bringing it back to the broader scheme of things is this opportunity to bring more people in, to let them feel like they have a place and purpose in and can be a part of that is, to me, really exciting, actually.
SD: So let’s conclude by talking about the athletes for a minute and your role with them.
How do you help the athletes who have given everything they’ve got? They’ve become an Olympian. They’ve they obviously have done some amazing things along the way. But they never get a medal, though. How do you help them?
CRN: You know, it’s a couple of different things. It’s and again I can kind of self-reflect on this, right? Because I was fourth. That’s, that’s a hard one. That’s a hard one to be in.
SD: You just sliced by the podium.
CRN: Yeah. We call it the chocolate medal. That’s what we call it. The chocolate medal. You know, I think it’s about a couple of different things. One, from a mentorship side of things, helping them to realize how exceptional they were on the field of play. Two, it’s about how, and, again, this is sort of, I would say, more a personal drive on my side. How can I help to open up doors for them? And, share with them my experience in transitioning and also just what they can expect, what they need, what their next steps are.
How can I help them? Help direct them? How can I use my network to open up doors for them? And I think that’s incredibly important, but then also encouraging them to find the new thing that drives them. Because I think for so many of us, it wasn’t work. It was a passion.
It was a love. And that’s how we are driven through success. And so, you know, I am always there for any of my athletes to be able to help them. And, you know, with the organizing committee from that perspective, right, we will eventually start to scale and bring more in. And the more athlete voices I think we have in this process, the better, quite honestly.
So that we can create that optimized feel to play for them. And that becomes a springboard for them later on as well.
SD: We can’t thank you enough. Cat, thank you so much for all you’ve done for sport, all you’ve done for sport in the state of Utah, all you’ve done for sport in the Olympics and in the Olympic movement. You have made and are making a real difference. And thanks so much for talking to us about it today.
CRN: Well, thank you.
SD: And onward.
CRN: Onward, onward we go.
SD: On we go.
CRN: Yes.