The invitation from the International Olympic Committee came on Wednesday.
The Lausanne, Switzerland-based organization and the group seeking a second Winter Olympics in Utah will enter a new phase of the talks about hosting the Games in Salt Lake City and the surrounding region. The IOC said Salt Lake City is the preferred host of the Games in 2034. The awarding of the event to the capital city is anticipated in July, on the eve of the Summer Olympics in Paris.
The Park City area will be a critical component to the upcoming discussions between the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, which is the group seeking the award of the 2034 event, and the IOC. Park City and the Snyderville Basin would have an outsized role in a Games, similar to the 2002 Winter Olympics.
There is more than a decade before the Winter Olympics of 2034 will begin, ample time for officials in Park City, Summit County, the Statehouse and an eventual Games organizing committee to engage each other in the discussions that will be needed to prepare. The ongoing bid process, several years of Marsac Building talks about the prospects of another Winter Olympics and knowledge of the Games of 21 years ago, though, begin to provide a sketch, albeit a rough one, of how the event in 2034 could be staged in Park City and surrounding Summit County.
The Park City area will be crucial to nearly every aspect of a Games. Three major competition venues — Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and the Utah Olympic Park — are identified on the concept map. Soldier Hollow in nearby Wasatch County is also identified as a competition venue. The Park City area will also be key in the plans for transportation and celebrations.
Still, though, it is impossible to predict with certainty what Park City will be like during a second Winter Olympics. Park City was the Alpine heart of the Games in 2002, and that sort of vision would continue to fit the community into 2034. Park City in 2002 offered a quaint, snowy counterbalance to the Winter Olympic activities in Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Front. As the Games wore on, more and more of the visitors were drawn to the atmosphere of Park City.
With the Park City area and the rest of the Winter Olympic region beginning to recast the Games discussions from the bid phase to the organizing one, government leaders and an organizing committee will have a series of issues to address in the ongoing community conversation and then in the final blueprints for the event. The decisions will help define how the Games unfold — whether they are magical like in 2002, or whether the winter sports world will be left wondering what happened to the magic of Park City.
Issues Winter Olympic organizers and government officials will consider in coming years include:
• The final competition map: Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and the Utah Olympic Park each hosted competitions in 2002 and have been identified as venues in the concept for a future Games.
The Utah Olympic Park, the location of the ski jumps and the bobsled track, would host the jumping and the sliding sports again. The events that are ultimately staged at Park City Mountain and Deer Valley will need to be finalized early in an organizing committee’s work since the venue map will influence other aspects of the preparations like transportation and security. The Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games is negotiating agreements with the venues identified for competitions.
Park City Mountain in 2002 hosted ski racing and snowboarding competitions, while Deer Valley was the location of other ski racing disciplines and freestyle skiing. A 2018 conceptual venue map for a future Games had snowboarding and freestyle skiing competitions at Park City Mountain, and freestyle skiing and ski racing at Deer Valley.
In the time since the 2018 concept was made public, Deer Valley announced plans for a massive expansion into a large tract of terrain on the resort’s eastern flank, commonly known as Mayflower. It is not clear whether the Mayflower terrain could eventually be used during a Games.
• The transportation network: The Games map is envisioned as stretching from Snowbasin in the north to Provo in the south and from the Wasatch Back in the east to Kearns in the west. The Winter Olympic theater would cover a wide swath of the northern half of the state and will require a range of travel options as organizers and transportation officials at the state and local levels attempt to move the large crowds. Leaders in Park City and Summit County will focus on the issue with the community already leery of the traffic.
The Games of 2002 relied on large temporary satellite parking lots on the outskirts of Park City and an unprecedented fleet of buses to shuttle people to the competitions and then back to the lots. That sort of arrangement would be expected to be implemented again since it is seen as a practical method of diverting traffic before the lines of cars arrive in the core of Park City.
There appears to be the potential, however, of City Hall making progress in the next decade on alternative means of transportation that could be employed during a Games as well as into the long-term future. Decisions have not been made, but ideas like rail routes and an aerial network, serviced by gondolas, have been broached. The possibility of the federal government earmarking transportation monies related to the Games preparations in coming years could provide a boost if City Hall or the County Courthouse pursue upgrades.
• The celebration plans: The crowds in Park City will be immersed in the snow and ice at the competition venues, but the festivities accompanying a Games are also a draw for national and international spectators regardless of whether they are fans of the Winter Olympics. Even if someone lacks a ticket to a competition, they will want to surround themselves the best they can with the experience of the Games.
Park City has for decades, long before even the Winter Olympics of 2002, excelled at creating an attractive atmosphere against the mountain-town backdrop. City Hall leaders and tourism boosters will want to craft ideas for a celebration that will highlight the community while also acknowledging the global audience of an Olympics.
Main Street will be central to any ideas, and it seems reasonable to assume at this point that the celebration blueprints from the earlier Winter Olympics will be closely studied during the discussions about 2034.
Park City early on in the talks about 2002 made the key decision to create a pedestrian-only celebration zone on Main Street for the Games. The shopping, dining and entertainment strip became one of the top draws of the Games. Revelers perused temporary corporate setups on Main Street, they partook in the popular Olympic hobby of pin trading, they were wowed by the Budweiser Clydesdales and then they gathered to watch fireworks at night.
There were attractions elsewhere in Park City, too, including a Norwegian contingent that welcomed people at the Park City Library and a snow maze on the field outside the library.
The various aspects of the celebration will hinge on funding from an Olympic organizing committee, the municipal government and corporate interests. The amount of any monies that may be available will depend on factors like the economic conditions at the time.