How the 2034 Winter Olympics in the USA was Won

On Feb. 10, 2034, the world’s greatest winter sports athletes will convene once again in Utah for the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. In doing so, Utah will join Lake Placid and St. Moritz as the only places to host the Games twice.
The angles around how the Games were awarded for a second time to Utah, with the nod coming 22 years after its successful 2002 Games, are many and varied.

Starting Early With Strength

Foremost, a Foundation was born from the profits of the 2002 Games, charged with maintaining its legacy venues for the following 20 years and motivated to repeat the performance of the ’02 Games to re-endow those venues in perpetuity. Next, a community formed comprised of highly experienced officials from the ’02 Games, and from the three sport national governing bodies that call Utah home — skiing and snowboarding, speedskating and biathlon — well-schooled in the Olympic bid process, international sports politics, and the business of organizing the world’s biggest sporting events. Also, local communities came together that had seen the ’02 Games serve as a catalyst that transformed a once-sleepy state into one of the hottest economies in the country, with a staggering 80% public approval for the State’s efforts to bring the Games back.
And throw in the bevy of local Olympians and Paralympians past and present, who live throughout Utah’s Wasatch Mountains, and who are highly engaged in Utah’s sport culture, along with the hundreds of international elite athletes who train in Utah every year.

The draw is irresistible!

Making Financial Sense

More interesting, perhaps, are the reasons why the Games are coming back to Utah, and the key Midwest connections that have played a role in its return.
In 2014, following the staggering financial cost avalanche of Sochi, reportedly north of $50 billion in expenses, and a forthcoming bid process in which Beijing, with virtually no winter sports facilities or culture, would be its only viable candidate, the International Olympic Committee called for a re-direct. Accordingly, its Agenda 2020 aspired to be a more sustainable model for the Games, one which would:
• Minimize the need to build new facilities.

• Enhance the transparency of and accountability around the organization of the Games.
• And one that would shape a new bid process, built around consultation, and a continuous dialog with potential host communities, with the goal of finding mutually beneficial ways that possible hosts and the Olympic movement could collaborate.
Having maintained its facilities from the 2002 Games at an international standard and having hosted hundreds of international events at those facilities since 2002, Utah was emboldened to assemble a plan for a future Games that would require no new permanent venues to be constructed for a future Games. While the budget drafted for a future Games would still be measured in the billions ($2.83 billion in 2034, to be exact), it would be roughly the same as what was spent in 2002, 32 years earlier. And no new permanent construction would mean far less environmental impact.

Draw of the People

Through its Agenda 2020, the IOC also called for gender equality and a focus on diversity in the Games. Thanks in part to its recent in-migration, Utah has become a rapidly changing state. It is increasingly diverse, with around a 25% minority share of the population and nearly 10% of its residents born outside the USA. Over 140 languages are spoken by children in Utah schools. In winter-sport programs in Utah, nearly 20% of the participants in entry-level programs are minority participants. And Utah now has the youngest population in the nation with an average age of 31. This combination of youth and diversity is desirable to the IOC as it seeks new audiences.

Utah’s living legacy from the 2002 Games was perhaps the most compelling to the IOC. Not only do Utah’s winter venues host a regular cadence of international competitions, hosting nearly 250 international events in the past 20 years, but also Utah’s youth are participating in winter sports programs in droves, with thousands of kids taking part in programs spanning every single Winter Olympic sport.
And then there are the local connections.
The effort to bring the Games back to Utah has been a sustained, long-term community effort, requiring not only the compilation of a 5,000-page bid file, contracts with 13 venues and 21,000 hotel rooms, and guarantees from the Utah State Legislature. It also required a prevalent winter sports culture and a demonstrated capacity to reliably host top-level international events across the spectrum of winter sports. Venues such as the Soldier Hollow Nordic Center, which has hosted five World Cup and Junior World Championship events in both able-bodied and adaptive cross-country skiing and biathlon over the last eight winters, have given the International Olympic Community assurance that Utah has the operational capability to deliver a worthy Games experience.
And much of that effort can be traced back to people with Midwestern ties:
• Catherine Raney-Norman: Speedskater from Elm Grove, WI. Catherine competed in four Olympics, including in Salt Lake City, 2002. She has served as the Chair of the SLC-UT bid committee and led Utah’s bid for three years.
• Lindsey Vonn: The Olympic Downhill champion is from St. Paul, MN. Lindsey made her Olympic debut in Salt Lake City in 2002 and has served as the Chief of Athlete Experience for the SLC-UT bid committee. She’s brought the innovative idea of an “athlete family village” to the forefront, with a special village for athletes’ family members planned for the University of Utah, a first-of-its-kind effort.
• Tom Kelly: The longtime communications chief for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team hails from Madison, WI. Kelly served as a communication consultant and member of the SLC-UT bid committee.
• Bill Pierce: A well-known figure in the Midwest cross-country skiing scene from Brookfield, WI, Bill has served in many roles with leading organizations such as CXC Skiing and the Birkie. He is the venue manager at Soldier Hollow and the chief of competition for countless skiing events, including NCAA and national championships, and World Cup and World Junior Championship events, all of which have contributed to Utah’s excellent reputation.
• Ben Koenig: A former cross-country ski racer from Wausau, WI, Ben has been the Chief of Course at Soldier Hollow during all of its major events during the past four winters.
• Josh Korn: A 17-time Birkie skier from Thorpe, WI, Josh serves as Soldier Hollow’s event manager, leading the delivery of over 30 events annually at the venue, from ski races to festivals to cycling events, including the recent Pan-American Mountain Bike Championships, won by 2024 Olympic silver medalist Haley Batten.
• Gerrit Garberich: The former St Scholastica Nordic team member from Brainerd, MN, is now the head of sports programs for Team Soldier Hollow, a program that has grown to include 500 youth from Utah’s Heber Valley who ski in programs at least twice a week, which includes national champions and Youth Olympians.
Editor’s Note: And humbly omitted by the writer, but added here by this managing editor, is Luke Bodensteiner, Chief of Sport Development for Utah Olympic Legacy. Born in Iowa City, Iowa, Luke attended high school in West Bend, WI, and was a 1992 and 1994 Team USA cross-country skiing Olympian, who then became a member of the Board of Trustees for the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Organizing Committee, a founder of the Soldier Hollow legacy venue, and a longtime member and most recent Chairman of the Board of the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation.
I am fortunate to have had extended conversations with Luke since I first “met” him when he was an adolescent in Lee Borowski’s iconic Simple Secrets of Skating video. I know returning the Winter Games to the USA, in Utah, has been his aspirational dream. Congratulations to you, Luke, your wonderful family, and to all the people and communities involved in achieving such a monumental goal, and the pride the Upper Midwest can take in its contributing athletes!