It was the middle of February of 2020 when the roster of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games was named during an event at the state Capitol.
Figures representing a range of backgrounds and industries were tapped to pursue a second Winter Olympics in the state. It was a high-profile assignment with Salt Lake City, Park City and the wider region appearing confident that another Games was possible.
Which edition would make the most sense, perhaps the Games of 2030 or those of four years later, was not clear. There was, however, hope, possibly even an expectation, that the Olympic flame would be lit again in the capital city.
One of the prominent Park City-area names called that day was Colin Hilton, a winter-sports executive who brought vast experience to the task. Hilton, who died at 58 on Aug. 21, was a veteran of the organizing committee that staged the 2002 Winter Olympics and spent the intervening years in important roles in the winter sports realm and in local government. He eventually became the president and CEO of the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation, the organization that oversees the Utah Olympic Park, the Soldier Hollow Nordic Center and the Utah Olympic Oval.
Hilton during the event at the Capitol was appointed one of two vice-chairs of the board of directors, a post that helped ensure the Park City area was represented at the upper echelons of the bid hierarchy. Hilton, understanding the magnitude of the day, delivered remarks about the continued use of the competition venues from the 2002 Games. He credited elected officials, sports officials and businesspeople across the decades.
“From the Salt Lake Valley to the Heber Valley, from Ogden to Provo, we have figured out a way to find sustainable uses of these unique sport facilities. And not only kept them operating but having molded them into true assets in their communities,” Hilton said.
He spoke of the bidding that was looming for the Winter Olympic region, saying, “Our future Games will provide us an opportunity to align visionary goals of our state and local communities, and I look forward to joining together, rallying around a common cause and seeing what new successes we can achieve when we set our minds to it.”
The International Olympic Committee, a little more than four years later, awarded the Games of 2034 to Salt Lake City, with the Park City area selected as one of the key locations.
It is difficult to grasp, or to overestimate, just how significant a figure Hilton was in Games circles in a state with a Winter Olympic past and future. The mere presence of the nationally recognizable, politically polished Mitt Romney as the leader of the 2002-era Salt Lake Organizing Committee overshadowed Hilton and everyone else involved in that group. And Hilton later did not command the name recognition of the gold-medal winners who hailed from Utah, even with some of them greatly benefiting from the facilities under the umbrella of the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation he led.
But Hilton nonetheless would come to stand as a unique luminary in the field.
Hilton arrived at the Salt Lake Organizing Committee after serving in a role with the group that staged the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and, earlier, working for the organization that hosted the 1994 World Cup soccer tournament in the United States. It was precisely the sort of background that would lead someone to the 2002 Games and into the current era of the 2034 Winter Olympics.
There is hardly anyone in the state with the same level of understanding of the mechanics of the Games. As a speaker, he could seamlessly move between Winter Olympic eras and between global sporting events, explaining the anticipated similarities and differences. Hilton’s resume was unparalleled.
He directed the Salt Lake Organizing Committee operations in Park City and surrounding Summit County. It was a crucial position with the community’s pivotal role in the Games. Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and the Utah Olympic Park were competition venues, and the community was critical to the transportation, security and celebration plans.
Hilton essentially was the organizing committee’s point person for the area. He worked with the leadership of Park City and Summit County, a host of other governmental institutions and the mountain resorts as the plans for the ultimately wildly successful Games were crafted. The events at the three competition venues were virtually sold out. Main Street provided the setting for a popular pedestrian-only celebration zone. The logistical plans, the most elaborate to date in the Park City area, essentially worked as designed.
“Quite frankly, we could have sold 40% more tickets to many of the events, maybe more. The demand was huge,” Hilton said in early 2003, as the organizing committee released the final report about the Games.
Hilton later worked for the Park City municipal government, overseeing the construction of the China Bridge garage expansion and the Quinn’s Junction recreation complex. He returned to the winter-sports field in 2006 and spent the rest of his career there.
It is unclear what sort of role Hilton would have played in the seven and a half remaining years of preparations for 2034. The Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation duties alone would have kept him at the forefront of the work. His deep knowledge of the 2002 Games would have been vital to any exercises comparing or contrasting the plans of 24 years ago to those under consideration for 2034.
Prior to his death, it was hard to envision a scenario in which Hilton was not, in some capacity, integral to the effort.
The notion that the state could host a second Winter Olympics arose during the previous Games era, but the talk of that possibility seemed to become more prevalent at certain points over the decades. The start of each Winter Olympic year spurred at least some conversation of a future Games, as did the arrival of notable anniversaries of 2002.
In 2014, as the Games in Sochi, Russia, opened, Hilton was among those in Utah touting the idea of another Winter Olympics. He was a member of a Games exploratory committee and perhaps the 2026 event was a potential option, backers indicated then. Hilton at that time described the state’s Olympic facilities as having remained busy in the 12 years since 2002 and said Utah had the infrastructure needed for a Games.
“We have essentially served as a great example of an Olympic city that got it right,” Hilton said that February.