Utah Olympic delegation off to Paris with eye on 2034 games
Alixel Cabrera
(Utah News Dispatch) The greeting room at the Salt Lake City International Airport, where many Utah families welcome home Latter-day Saint missionaries, was full instead of elected officials, athletes and cameras on Monday afternoon.
Many, wearing dark blue Team USA T-shirts, waited with excitement to send off the delegation that will make the final pitch to the International Olympic Committee to consider Salt Lake City to host the 2034 Winter Games.
When the Utah delegation — including Gov. Spencer Cox, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, and Fraser Bullock, president and CEO of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games — visited the airport Monday afternoon before catching a flight to Paris, they probably saw the Hoberman Arch, an installation from the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic Games, for likely the last time before it gets an anticipated update.
Very early on Wednesday, after the vote of the International Olympic Committee that will most likely designate Salt Lake City as the host for the 2034 Winter Games, the sign underneath the arch that reads “Salt Lake City, Host of the 2002 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games” will be updated to include the year 2034.
“When we go to Paris, we’re representing Utah. We’re representing all of you and we’re so excited to do that,” Bullock said, “to show the best of who we are, to show the best of the Utah people and what they stand for and how they’re the best volunteers, in my opinion, in the world, the great venues, the great mountains, we get to show all of that to the world in two days.”
Balloons and a big “2034 SLC-UT” decorated the airport greeting room. Cox and Mendenhall cut a cake featuring a skier gliding down a slope. Alongside them were Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, and Rep. Jon Hawkins, R-Pleasant Grove. Olympians, such as speed skaters Erin Jackson and Derek Parra, also celebrated before boarding the plane to France with the delegation.
Cox said he remembers being fresh out of college, walking through the city in the cold in 2002 with his wife, and experiencing a sense of community with people whose languages he didn’t understand. Though he’s excited to feel that energy in Paris, where the Summer Olympics are happening this year, he said, he can’t wait for Utah to host the games in 2034.
“Yes, it’s Salt Lake City’s games, it’s Utah’s games, and that’s where our mindset is. But these games in 2034 are the USA games. We get to represent the United States of America to the world,” Cox said. “That’s special. It’s a privilege but it’s also a burden.”
Once the contracts are finished and signed, the work of the next 10 years begins, as Utahns strive to make the state its best possible version, Cox said. That would take Republicans and Democrats working together, and different legislators, mayors and governors joining forces.
“Even just the past week, there’s been some ups and downs. It’s been a bumpy ride. But we’re prepared to get the best presentation possible. We’re excited for that vote. We’re confident that the IOC is going to vote in favor of Salt Lake City in Utah in 2034,” Cox said on Monday.
At noon in Paris Wednesday, the committee is scheduled to cast votes to elect the host city. Meanwhile, in Salt Lake City, it’ll be 3 a.m. and residents will be watching the live coverage from a party in Washington Square.
For Mendenhall, this is the culmination of years of preparation to repeat the feat that the city accomplished in 2002.
She sees that legacy in TRAX lines, which received funding after the city won its last Olympic bid; also in families using the Olympic Oval, or the Hoberman Arch, in front of the airport.
“The Olympics are who we are. And this is our moment,” Mendenhall said. “Salt Lake City and Utah, we’re ready for this. We’re ready to put that new foot forward. The legacy is tremendous. And, we are not the same as we were in 2002. We have more beauty to offer. We’re a more welcoming community than even ever before.”