The Winter Olympics closed in late February, but leaders from Park City and surrounding Summit County are scheduled to relay their experiences in Italy this week.

Park City and Summit County officials attended the Milano Cortina Games on fact-finding missions as they begin the early steps in preparing for the 2034 Winter Olympics in Utah. The Park City Council and the Summit County Council are scheduled to gather at the Marsac Building for a joint meeting on Friday, with a presentation about the Games in Italy planned.

It is not clear what level of detail the officials will address and whether they will also talk about strategies for the work toward 2034. There seems to be interest in cooperation between the two governments on the Games efforts. The 20 minutes that are allocated for the presentation about Italy are likely not enough time for the officials to also engage in a robust discussion about upcoming steps in the area’s own Winter Olympic planning.

Jodi Emery, the acting city manager, and County Manager Shayne Scott are expected to deliver the presentation. Both traveled to Italy as part of an International Olympic Committee-organized observers program.

The Park City and Summit County governments will play key roles in the preparations for the Games. There are three competition venues in the Park City area — Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and the Utah Olympic Park — and the area will be crucial to the transportation, security and celebration plans.

The discussion on Friday could be similar to one that was held during a 2024 joint meeting between the City Council and the County Council, after officials returned from a fact-finding trip to the Summer Olympics in Paris that year. The travelers were in the French capital for the awarding of the Games of 2034 to Salt Lake City and for observation purposes.

The meeting in 2024 included comments about traffic, transportation and the economic impact of the Games. The presentation at that meeting covered issues like road closures, dedicated road lanes for vehicles that were part of the official Olympic fleet and communications challenges.

The trips to France and Italy will likely be two in a series of Games visits as part of the preparations for 2034. There are two Summer Olympics and one Winter Olympics scheduled before the 2034 Games.

The travelers to Italy were especially interested in the mountain venues that hosted the competitions that are slated for the Park City area during the Games.

The officials from the Park City area, as an example, studied the operations in the Alpine venue community of Cortina d’Ampezzo. There are similarities between Park City and Cortina d’Ampezzo, with both of them being internationally known mountain resorts.

The meeting on Friday is scheduled to start at 9 a.m. at the Marsac Building. The talk about the Winter Olympics is scheduled to start at 10:05 a.m. The Park City and Summit County leaders at the meeting are also scheduled to discuss plans for a senior center in Park City and the future of Recycle Utah.

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Park City Councilor Bill Ciraco is in Italy for the Winter Olympics and, on Monday, described the greatest challenge he has seen so far.

It is one many would expect with Games organizers needing to move the crowds from Milan through a wide swath of the Italian Alps.

“It shouldn’t be much of a surprise, but transportation is the biggest challenge. It is a challenge because people have a hard time with temporary arrangements. They don’t trust the reliability, so you get a little prisoner’s dilemma developing when people plan their transportation,” Ciraco said via email from Cortina d’Ampezzo. “The fact that these Games are spread out over vast distances with very mountainous terrain adds to the challenge.”

Ciraco also addressed some of what he sees as the differences between the Games underway in Italy and the Winter Olympics in Utah, noting the 2002 Games, as he described transportation possibilities for the 2034 Winter Olympics.

“2002’s venue footprint was pretty compact. If we can make it more compact and service much of (the Games) with visible fixed route transportation options, that will serve us well. I have suspected for a while that this might be the case, and being here in Italy drives the point home,” Ciraco said.

Transportation is one of the crucial aspects of any plans for an Olympics, whether in the summer or the winter. Games organizers must develop a transportation system that brings large numbers of people to the competitions and then carries the spectators away afterward.

The transportation planning for 2034 is expected to be one of the most important tasks and will team the Games organizers with various government institutions like Park City, Summit County and the state. Organizers of the Games in 2002 relied on large temporary satellite parking lots in the Park City area, directing drivers there and then shuttling the crowds to and from the competitions.

Ciraco also described the greatest strength he has observed, saying Italy remains “one of the places in Europe where the local culture and the country culture still feel like what you might imagine it to be.”

“There is tradition, there is history and there is authenticity. Italian culture and the regional and local traditions are strong in Italy. Italians concede the things that they do not excel at, but are very proud of the things they are masters at: food, fashion, style, and during this Olympiad winter sports, especially alpine skiing,” he said.

Ciraco is not part of the official City Hall delegation in Italy and arranged his own itinerary, which was scheduled to include stops in Milan and the Italian Alps communities of Cortina d’Ampezzo and Bormio. He is traveling at his own expense.

Mayor Ryan Dickey, City Councilor Tana Toly and acting City Manager Jodi Emery are traveling in Italy as the official delegation from City Hall. The three are participating in an International Olympic Committee-organized observers program.

Ciraco, meanwhile, said the various athletic organizations will be important to the efforts toward 2034.

“For Utah and Park City to have a great Games we as a community, a state and a country need to get out and support our Olympic sport organizations, such as: U.S. Ski & Snowboard right in Park City, USA Ski Jumping, USA Luge, US Biathlon and US Speedskating,” he said. “We need to support their feeder organizations such as Park City Ski & Snowboard, the Winter Sports School, Utah Olympic Park and Legacy Foundation and Youth Sports Alliance among others.”

He didn’t stop with the organizations.

“Support our athletes, their families, their coaches and everyone who has toiled for decades to help improve these sports like Dar Hendrickson and Hatch Haslock among others,” he said. “If our athletes are able to be their best selves, they will likely find success in competition which makes for a very exciting and entertaining Olympics for our community. Trust me, Frederica Brignone is more popular in Italy now than Gucci or Ferrari.”

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CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Through hell or high water, Lindsey Vonn would make it to the start gates of the 2026 Olympic downhill, and the same went for her fans.

From all around the world, and then a few winding shuttle bus rides later, the crowd arrived ready to watch her Olympic downhill run at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Center Sunday morning. By 9 a.m., the Tofane skiing venue was already humming. Gucci snow suits brushed past fur coats. Polizia in ski boots and police uniform ski suits lined the course.

The event’s Italian emcee worked the finish area, while spectators danced for the broadcast cameras. In a massive red suede Tyrolean hat, the man sang “Volare” over the microphone along with the loudspeakers, trying to rile up the crowd gathered in the hours leading up to the women’s downhill. Notably, very few of the early spectators waved the host country’s green, white and red flag. 

“Italians tend to be late, except for this race,” joked the commentator. “They’ll arrive three or four minutes before the start. They might be here by 11:30. We shall see.”

Still, in the standing section of the finish line, people from around the world, and across the USA, had arrived more than three hours early to claim their spot close to the barricade. While the task turned out to be a bit fruitless, given the wide open space available even as the race drew near, the crowd was only eager to take it all in.  

Stefan and Jane Bledig were there early, hoping to see Lindsey Vonn ski on the world stage. They had traveled from St. Louis, Missouri, to see their first-ever Olympic event and donned every flag, T-shirt and piece of Team USA gear they could find. 

Still freshly creased from the factory, they waved their Olympic USA flag with friends they made on the sidelines, taking pictures with everyone they met from around the world, even one reporter from Park City.

“We’re looking out for Lindsey Vonn here today,” Stefan said. “And Breezy Johnson, too.”

He said the trip felt like the culmination of decades of winter sports fandom. For Stefan, his love of the Olympic spirit began with Franz Klammer’s downhill gold medal victory in the 1976 Innsbruck Olympic Games. He’s still emotional to this day remembering watching Klammer’s race in junior high. He said it was a moment that he will never forget. 

“It got me hooked on skiing. It got me hooked on winter sports,” said Stefan. 

Ten years earlier, the Bledigs were traveling in Alberta, Canada, when they stumbled into a World Cup sliding event and ran into the U.S. bobsled team over lunch. 

“They told us their favorite track in the world was St. Moritz,” Stefan said. “The oldest one, the only natural one. They said the ambiance was incredible. And then they told us tourists could ride it.”

It has been a full decade since that conversation, Jane marveled. And finally, they will be riding the St. Moritz bobsled track this week. 

“We’re not getting any younger,” said Jane. “We’re finally doing it.”

For Heather Dernlan and her son, Cade, the Olympics have always been a family obsession.

“This is our first Winter Olympics,” she said. “I grew up in California and went to the LA Summer Games, and we’re going back again in 2028. But I’ve never seen the Winter Games.”

Despite the early hour and the challenges of getting between the house they were staying in two towns over, and then the feat of overcoming the nauseating, winding bus ride up the mountain to the venue, Cade brought the energy by way of red-striped overalls, full face paint, USA glasses — you name it. Heather wore a classic Austrian alpine sweater from the Nagano Games, fitting right in with the crowd of Tyroleans from all around Europe who had come to support their skiers. 

“This is the thing I’m here for,” said Cade. “To see Lindsey Vonn again, especially after the ACL hurdle, it’s pretty awesome to see her give it another shot.”

Though the Olympic downhill was their main event, the Dernlans said they have a special place in their heart for the underrepresented sports, especially curling. They admitted they couldn’t necessarily explain the rules, but neither, they joked, could most people. 

That didn’t stop anyone from bringing the energy to Saturday night’s match, where enthusiasm and support mattered far more than the game itself. 

“We don’t really know what’s happening,” Heather said with a laugh. “But I love it so much. It’s like chess on ice.”

Cade said the Estonian supporters stood out in particular, filling the arena with flags, cowbells and coordinated chants that overpowered even the announcers. 

“They were so well represented. They had their flags everywhere, cowbells. The Estonians really rocked it,” Heather agreed. 

Hoping to turn themselves into something of a good luck charm, Cade promised to show up to Sunday night’s match with some American chants of his own. 

Travis Escobedo and Grace Crandall came to Cortina from Connecticut to watch the downhill with their kids, Ava and Samuel.

Grace, a former Dartmouth ski racer who captained the team in 2005 and competed at national junior championships, said Cortina felt like the perfect place to introduce her kids to skiing’s biggest stage.

“As soon as they announced it was coming back to the Alps, I said I would be here,” Crandall said. “And once we knew Lindsey would be here, we said, ‘OK, now we’re all going.’”

For the couple, the chance to experience something new with their children made the day even more meaningful, especially when it also meant taking a European ski trip alongside it.

“This is just a perfect place to ski as a family, and to bring our children to experience. I think skiing in Europe is unparalleled, and this is an epic venue,” said Crandall. 

Escobedo added: “And really, Lindsey dominates Cortina so well, and that definitely went into the calculus to get here.”

Vonn’s reputation on the course precedes her. Over the loudspeakers, the emcee cheered for “Cortina’s princess,” a nod to the course where she built much of her legacy and returned once more, chasing one final Olympic downhill.

Vonn’s family agreed. 

“I feel so confident,” said Lisa Krohn, Vonn’s maternal aunt. “I just know she can do it. And even with a bum knee, she can do it. She’s just amazing.”

“Just seeing her from a little kid all the way here, she’s so determined and worked so hard,” Krohn added. “I think that’s what propelled her to the greatness she has, because she works harder than anyone else I’ve ever known.”

Krohn, who lives in Edina, Minnesota, arrived at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Center as soon as the gates opened and had already been standing for more than three hours by midmorning. She acknowledged the week had been difficult following Vonn’s Jan. 30 crash, the pain, the uncertainty of racing, but said Vonn felt better than anyone expected.

“She’s had a hard week, but I’m amazed that she’s felt so good after mangling that knee,” Krohn said. “She’s used to skiing in pain, so I don’t think it’s anything new to her. She’s just back to being a little bit painful.”

Vonn’s father, Alan Kildow, said he was just as confident. This course was made for Lindsey, he said.

“She is ready for this,” he said. “The last few days, she’s been preparing. It was stressful coming through the injury, but I think she’s ready, and I’m confident.”

Laura Kildow, Lindsey’s sister, has watched nearly every version of this moment before, attending the Games in Salt Lake City, Vancouver, PyeongChang and now Cortina, but she said the emotions never dull.

“Watching her race, it’s amazing,” said Kildow. “It’s inspiring, nerve-wracking, it’s exciting.” 

Vanessa Cella, Vonn’s best friend from Park City, made it to her second Olympic Games after supporting Vonn in PyeongChang, South Korea, with her children, Olivia and Jackson in 2018.

“We’re not hoping for anything,” she said. “We know. We’re here for the big event.”

Before the start gates opened and the mountain turned loud and unforgiving, the people who knew her best stood certain that she was ready and that this hill was made for her.

While the crowd of people waiting below to support Vonn did not get to see her ski to the finish on Sunday, it remains that “Cortina’s princess” drew thousands from around the world, united in support of women in sport and celebrating the Olympic spirit.

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Once a venue in the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Soldier Hollow Nordic Center in Midway will again be Wasatch County’s claim to fame in the upcoming 2034 Olympics. 

Six events are slotted to take place at Soldier Hollow: biathlon, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, para biathlon and para cross country skiing.

Four other events — freestyle skiing, Nordic combined, snowboarding and para snowboarding — will be hosted in Summit County at Deer Valley Resort, Park City Mountain Resort and Utah Olympic Park. 

In both counties, Olympic venues are undergoing upgrades to meet modern standards for 2034. According to Luke Bodensteiner, Soldier Hollow Nordic Center general manager, the Midway Olympic venue is ahead of schedule. 

“A lot of the venues at Soldier Hollow are almost ready to go. We’re actually really capable of hosting the Olympics as it is,” Bodensteiner said.

Preparations for the first major project — expanding and renovating the nordic center — began three years ago and is now complete. 

The next phase of improvements will happen over the next five or six years. First is the expansion of Soldier Hollow’s automated snowmaking system. Then, it’s building an additional two kilometers of new trails.

According to Bodensteiner, the upgraded snowmaking system is a surefire way to “future-proof” Soldier Hollow’s Nordic skiing. Once the upgrades are made, he said the system will be more sustainable and efficient.

“We’ll be able to make the entire Olympic trail system within a two-week window,” Bodensteiner said. 

The snowmaking project alone will cost nearly $7 million, but that pales in comparison to the costs of designing the venue for the 2002 Winter Olympics. 

The venue initially cost $22 million to construct. Today, that’s equivalent to about $38.5 million.

Before Soldier Hollow’s construction, Midway was chosen as a venue location because it met altitude and environmental standards for the Utah-based 2002 Olympics. Most winter Olympic events are held at low or moderate altitude levels, and Bodensteiner said the limit has now changed where venues cannot be higher than 2,000 meters. Midway sits at about 1,700 meters. 

Bodensteiner said that the consistent snowpack levels and that Soldier Hollow is part of Wasatch Mountain State Park made it an easy choice for an Olympic venue again in 2034. 

Since its spotlight moment in 2002, Soldier Hollow has kept up with hosting national and world-cup level competitions, as well as providing local accessibility to cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. In the summer, Soldier Hollow is host to an international sheepdog competition, which sees competitors from 19 countries and more than 13,000 spectators. 

Bodensteiner said Soldier Hollow hosts up to eight biathlon competitions annually with one national-level competition a year and a world-cup level competition every five years or so. This year, the venue is gearing up for the cross country junior national championships.

The Nordic center also has about 500 kids who participate in ski programs.

“I can see that number going up as kids get more interested in the Olympics. … We’ve expanded the venue into mountain bike competitions as well,” Bodensteiner said. “I think one of the things that the community appreciates is it brings a lot of people to the area. Holding these events gives a real economic boost to the Heber Valley.” 

The city of Midway, affectionately dubbed “Little Switzerland” by locals, saw a boom of tourism with the 2002 Olympics and up to 99,000 spectators at the peak of the Winter Games. That was when Midway had half the population it does now with about 2,560 residents total. 

And Midway’s involvement in the Olympics is building. As of Sept. 14, 2023, the U.S. Biathlon announced its intention to relocate headquarters from New Gloucester, Maine, to Soldier Hollow. 

“We are excited to expand our footprint westward and join the Utah Olympic Community,” U.S. Biathlon President and CEO Jack Gierhart said in a press release. “We are looking forward to engaging with the greater Heber Valley and Utah community and expanding our support of the vibrant and growing biathlon communities around the country.”

They completed the move in summer 2024. U.S. Biathlon Communications Manager Sara Donatello said that by relocating headquarters to Midway, there is a presence in each region around the country. U.S. Biathlon’s national team is based in Lake Placid, New York, and the junior national team is based in Bozeman, Montana. 

“The Western region has a thriving Nordic community and a growing biathlon population, so moving our headquarters to Soldier Hollow allows us to more effectively support and grow our clubs and development programs,” Donatello said. 

As far as the 2034 Olympics go, Donatello said that Soldier Hollow has “done a fantastic job keeping the 2002 Olympic venues at Olympic standards. Donatello said that could be seen at the 2024 Soldier Hollow BMW IBU World Cup Biathlon, which saw more than 11,000 spectators during the three-day event. 

“Utah has the means to host the world again and we applaud the bid committee’s work to bring the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games back to the U.S.!” Donatello said. “We will see the release of the next international biathlon calendar this spring, and expect to see Soldier Hollow back on the IBU stage in the years leading up to 2034.”

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An International Olympic Committee delegation arrived in the Park City area on Thursday under brilliant blue skies and with ample snow remaining on the slopes for spring skiing.

The weather created a spectacular backdrop for what was billed as a highly important visit by the Future Host Commission of the IOC as the Lausanne, Switzerland-based organization prepares to select the city where the 2034 Winter Olympic will be held. The Future Host Commission, which has an influential role in the selection of cities for the Winter Olympics and the Summer Olympics, spent much of Thursday in the Park City area and in Wasatch County as part of a four-day fact-finding mission to the state. The work started on Wednesday and is scheduled to end on Saturday.

Stops at Park City Mountain and the Utah Olympic Park on Thursday were similar in nature. The Future Host Commission met a roster of government leaders, tourism officials and representatives of the locations proposed to be competition venues under the concept crafted by the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games. There were brief statements about the community’s work to reduce the impact of the tourism industry and a concise history of Park City Mountain’s ski-racing past.

The day, at least outwardly, appeared to be designed as much for exchanging friendly platitudes as offering an opportunity for local leaders to engage the IOC delegation in discussion about the overarching plan to hold a second Games in the state.

The IOC members moved across the Wasatch Back from midmorning through the middle of the afternoon. They did not spend extensive time at any of the three proposed Park City-area competition venues — Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and the Utah Olympic Park. The stop at Park City Mountain was held at the McGrath Mountain Center, with windows overlooking terrain proposed as a Winter Olympics competition venue.

Questions from the IOC members in view of the media and answers from the various parties in attendance were brief. The IOC contingent, as an example, inquired about the Park City-area lodging industry, drawing an answer from Jennifer Wesselhof, executive director of the Park City Chamber/Bureau, explaining that there are numerous units in the nightly rental pool in addition to traditional hotels.

Deirdra Walsh, the vice president and chief operating officer of Park City Mountain, said it would be thrilling to welcome the return of the Winter Olympics. She spoke about the 7,000-plus acres of terrain at Park City Mountain and mentioned the resort’s role as a venue during the 2002 Winter Olympics and as the location of the America’s Opening ski races years ago. She recalled the U.S. medal sweep in the men’s snowboarding halfpipe competition at Park City Mountain in 2002.

Wesselhoff provided a briefing about the area’s efforts toward “sustainable tourism.” She said the sustainable tourism work involves a 10-year plan that runs through the 2034 Winter Olympics, describing a desire for a balanced tourism-based economy. Wesselhoff also said Park City draws an international clientele that in the pre-pandemic era accounted for 12% of visitors.

“Park City welcomes the world,” she said.

The delegation stopped at Deer Valley for lunch and a brief meeting. Mayor Nann Worel and Todd Bennett, the Deer Valley president and chief operating officer, were in attendance. The Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games said the meeting was held at Snow Park Lodge and the IOC delegation viewed the terrain proposed as a competition venue. The IOC members also visited Soldier Hollow in Wasatch County, another proposed competition venue.

The IOC members traveled to Utah at a critical time as the group bidding for a second Winter Olympics in the state continues its work. The Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, which accompanied the delegation, in February submitted upward of 5,000 pages of documentation to the IOC detailing the plans to host a Games. The preferred host submission includes highlights such as the concepts for the competition venues and the plans for staffing an eventual Olympic organizing committee.

The visit occurred in the months before the full IOC is expected to name Salt Lake City the host of the Games of 2034 during meetings in Paris just before the opening of the Summer Olympics in the French capital. The IOC in November identified Salt Lake City as the preferred host for the event in 2034.

The Park City area is crucial to the blueprints for a second Winter Olympics, as was the case during the Games of 2002. Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and the Utah Olympic Park would be key competition venues while the area would also be heavily involved in the security, transportation and celebration planning.

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The relationship between the leaders of the Park City government and Park City Mountain can sometimes be strained.

There have been concerns over the years about issues related to crowds at the resort and a dispute centered on a onetime bid by the resort and its parent to secure a trademark for the name “Park City,” as examples.

But this weekend there will be accolades across Park City as the community’s namesake mountain resort celebrates its 60^th anniversary.

Park City leaders have not extensively addressed the anniversary even as the municipal government acknowledges the importance of Park City Mountain to the community.

There was a brief mention of the anniversary in a December municipal resolution welcoming the winter. Officials in November, when the resort opened for the landmark season, made some of the strongest statements in praise of Park City Mountain in a report submitted to Mayor Nann Worel and the Park City Council as the resort secured an approval for a celebration of the anniversary unfolding over this weekend.

The report, drafted by City Hall staffers, covers logistical matters regarding the celebration, but it also discusses the crucial role the mountain resort played in the modern era of Park City, starting with the opening in the 1960s under a different name, Treasure Mountains.

Park City Mountain “has helped Park City move away from a relatively depressed silver mining town into a world-class mountain resort town and destination,” the report said, referring to the difficult decades of the community’s history after the silver-mining industry that drove the economy collapsed.

Park City Mountain highlights listed in the report include:

• The so-called skier subway that once “was used to transport skiers nearly 2.5 miles into the mountain through pitch black Spiro Tunnel on a mine train where skiers boarded a mining elevator that lifted them 1,750 feet up to the Thaynes chairlift. Aerial trams, once used for hauling ore, were converted into chairlifts.”
• Hosting skiing and snowboarding events during the 2002 Winter Olympics. “The constructed stadium accommodated 16,500 people per event and was 99% sold out throughout the Games, totaling 95,991 spectators. At the same time, 96% of the resort was open for normal seasonal operations, making it the only venue where spectators could leave and re-enter.”
• The 2014 acquisition of Park City Mountain by Colorado-based Vail Resorts and the subsequent linking of Park City Mountain and Canyons Resort into a single resort after they were each formerly a standalone property, “making it the largest ski resort in North America.”

The report also says Park City Mountain “has notably contributed to the resort economy.”

The mention of the role during the Games of 2002 was made as Salt Lake City and the wider region pursue a second Winter Olympics, with the event in 2034 appearing possible. Park City Mountain is identified on the concept map of competition venues for a future Games.

The celebration of the 60^th anniversary continued on Saturday with a 4:30 p.m. concert by Wilderado at the Mountain Village side of the resort.

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The Sundance Film Festival attendance in January 2002 suffered as the final preparations were underway for the Winter Olympics the next month.

According to Sundance, the attendance in 2002 was 20,435, a drop of nearly 2,100 people from 2001.

There were a variety of reasons for the drop mentioned at the time. The festival was moved up by a week to further separate the closing of Sundance from the opening of the Games, which likely impacted travel plans for some since the festival started soon after the holidays. There were also travel jitters in the months after the September 11 attacks.

And some were unsure if Park City could accommodate the regular level of Sundance crowds with the Games starting so soon afterward and with so much Olympic-related work occurring. Economic uncertainty at that moment also undoubtedly played a role in dampening attendance at the film festival.

The attendance began to recover in 2003, when 38,707 people were at Sundance.

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The 2034 Winter Olympics are just more than a decade away.

And already there are blocks of hotel rooms in the Park City area essentially booked for the Games that year.

Months before the International Olympic Committee is poised to formally award Salt Lake City the Games of 2034, the organization mounting the bid for the event has secured commitments from lodging properties across northern Utah for the Olympic period. Six properties in the Park City area had reached agreements with the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games by late December. The agreements highlight the importance of the community to the staging of the Games, but they also serve as another early marker in the broader planning effort in anticipation of a second Olympics in the state.

The Park City-area lodging properties that have reached agreements with the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games:

• AC Hotel Park City
• Best Western Plus Landmark Inn
• DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Park City – The Yarrow
• Hyatt Place Park City
• Park City Peaks Hotel
• Sheraton Park City

An additional five lodging properties in nearby Wasatch County, including the Homestead Resort, have also reached agreements.

“We’re not done,” said John Sindelar, who is the accommodations adviser for the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games.

The International Olympic Committee in late November invited the capital city into another phase of the discussions about staging the Games in 2034 and labeled Salt Lake City the preferred host. The awarding of the Games of 2030 and those of 2034 is anticipated in July, just before the Summer Olympics open in Paris.

The Park City area is crucial to the plans, with Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and the Utah Olympic Park identified as important competition venues. The community would also be critical to the transportation, security and celebration planning. Soldier Hollow in Wasatch County is also identified on the competition map.

Sindelar provides a unique background as the committee seeking the Games prepares for the likelihood of transforming into an organizing committee as soon as the summer. He spent six years working for the organizing committee that put on the Games of 2002 in Salt Lake City, rising director of accommodations then.

The current work has secured more than 19,000 rooms for the Olympic period in 2034 as well as the same number of rooms for the time of the Winter Olympics of 2030, which are expected to be awarded to the French Alps region but were earlier seen as a possibility for Salt Lake City. The agreements between the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games and the lodging properties stretch for up to 33 nights, covering the 17 nights of the Olympics, 14 nights immediately prior to the opening ceremonies and two nights following the close of the Games.

“We become an attractive option for the hotels,” he said, particularly highlighting the 33-night bookings.

The more than 19,000 rooms are mostly within traditional hotels. The rooms would be set aside for the International Olympic Committee, sports federations, national Olympic committees, sponsors and the media. Sindelar said the lodging properties as part of the agreements were required to commit at least 60% of the rooms to the Games, saying the benchmark is the equivalent of an average of 100 rooms per participating hotel across the Olympic region. He said the agreements that have been reached encompass, on average, 80% of the rooms in the properties.

The Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games agreed to pay higher rates as the individual properties committed more rooms, he said. The rates will be set by a formula relying on the base rate for the individual properties, an inflationary component and the premium that is based on the number of rooms that were committed. The actual rates would not be finalized until 2031.

The committee approached every hotel in Park City and surrounding Summit County with at least 50 rooms and a rating of at least two stars.

Sindelar said it is unclear whether the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games will reach agreements with a significant number of additional local properties. He said some lodging properties have indicated they are “going their own way” during an Olympics and do not intend to sign agreements with the committee. There is also a limited number of properties in the Park City area that fit the minimum 50-room, two-star criteria, he said, describing the lodging industry as weighted toward condominiums and condominium hotels, which tend to involve separate ownership of the units, rather than traditional hotels.

The rooms the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games is securing in the Park City area account for a small percentage of those available throughout the various segments of the lodging industry. There are hotels across the ratings spectrum that have opted against signing an agreement while the committee did not tap other segments in the lodging industry outside of traditional hotels. The hotels that reached agreements with the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, meanwhile, kept some of their rooms out of the deals, Sindelar said.

“There is still plenty of lodging out there,” he said as he described the eventual availability for the Olympic crowds. “The condos and Airbnbs.”

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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.

The post Analysis: A sketch of Park City’s role in a 2034 Winter Olympics begins to emerge appeared first on Park Record.

The International Olympic Committee on Wednesday invited Salt Lake City into another phase of the discussions about hosting a second Winter Olympics in the state, a landmark moment in the efforts to return the Games to Utah that have been underway for much of the time since the cauldron was extinguished on the 2002 Winter Olympics.

The IOC and the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, which is the group seeking the event, will engage in a phase known as the targeted dialogue for the Winter Olympics of 2034. Salt Lake City is the IOC’s preferred host for that year.

The IOC also said the Games of 2030 and 2034 will be awarded at the same time, a so-called dual award. The awarding of the 2030 and 2034 events is planned at an IOC Session in Paris in July, just before the start of the Summer Olympics in the French capital. The IOC on Wednesday invited the French Alps region into a targeted dialogue for the Winter Olympics of 2030.

In remarks during a press conference, Karl Stoss, the chair of the IOC’s Future Host Commission, said positives about the Salt Lake City bid include the legacy of the Games 21 years ago, the existing facilities and what he described as “exceptional public support.” The IOC also said other places interested in hosting a Winter Olympics would benefit from additional time to craft their plans.

The IOC provided a timeline leading to the IOC session in Paris, including a submission as a future host in February, followed by guarantees shortly afterward. The IOC intends to visit the state in April. IOC meetings are slated in May and June as the organization prepares for the gathering in Paris.

The Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games had hoped the IOC during the meetings this week would extend the invitation to enter the targeted dialogue phase. The IOC and a potential host city during a targeted dialogue engage in a detailed review of the plans to stage a Games. A city that advances to a targeted dialogue is seen as a leading contender for a later selection as host.

“The decision of the IOC to invite Salt Lake City-Utah into targeted dialogue as the preferred host for 2034 is a credit to our communities working together to create a welcoming region for sport across our state. For more than a decade, our state and community leaders have united towards this goal. The IOC has recognized our high level of preparedness, with all venues in place and active, as well as overwhelming support from our political and business leaders as well as the public,” Fraser Bullock, the president and CEO of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games, said in a prepared statement.

Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and the Utah Olympic Park are identified as competition venues on the concept maps for a Games. City Hall, the County Courthouse and the two resorts have been involved in the talks to date, but it is not clear what sort of role they will have during the targeted dialogue phase. Extensive work went into the preparation of the submittal to the IOC with details from the various parties incorporated into the information.

The selection process changed radically from the era prior to the awarding of the Games of 2002 to Salt Lake City, relying on a long-running discussion between the IOC and the cities interested in hosting followed by the targeted dialogue. The invitation was also extended more than 10 years prior to the Games of 2034. Under the previous process, selections of Olympic hosts were made seven years in advance.

The additional time in the process could provide the Park City area an opportunity to more closely consider the possibility of tapping Olympic-related monies that are expected to flow into the region from the federal government. Leaders have seen a second Winter Olympics as something that could provide a boost to the efforts to address traffic and transportation, as an example. Those talks are expected to occur over time, but it is expected Park City and Summit County will address the topics along a timeline that allows for completion of any projects well before the cauldron is lit on a Games.

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