OGDEN — Local leaders and tourism officials from all along the Wasatch Front were among the many athletes, fans and others in Italy for the Milano Cortina Games.
Their visits weren’t about rest, relaxation and sightseeing, though. Rather, they were there to get a first-hand look at what it takes to organize and carry out the Olympic Games ahead of the Winter Olympics in Utah in 2034.
The setting may have been exotic, but as the Weber County participants describe it, the visit was exhausting, eye-opening and important as Utah officials lay the groundwork for 2034.
“It was this deep-dive, intensive program into what it takes to make all of this happen,” Sara Toliver, president of Visit Ogden and one of the many Utah officials who traveled to Italy, said Monday, a day after the Milano Cortina Games ended. “The days were incredibly long, the information was incredibly detailed. It really was this kind of intensive experience into learning all we could in the time that we were there to bring back and help us execute in eight years.”
Several others from the Weber County area also took part, including Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski, Weber County Commissioner Jim Harvey and Davy Ratchford, general manager at Snowbasin, the official Alpine skiing venue for the 2034 Games. In all, Toliver said there were perhaps 90 people from around Utah who visited different venues and host cities at different times — from Utah, Wasatch and Salt Lake counties and Park City and other locales — all with the aim of prepping for 2034.
Representatives from other future Olympic host cities and countries — Los Angeles, France and Australia — also took part, all of them participants in an observer program hosted by the Milano Cortina Organizing Committee. Such initiatives, said Brad Wilson, CEO of the Utah 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Organizing Committee, are about being prepared.
While events in the 2034 Games will be focused in the Salt Lake City area, there are also key venues in Utah, Wasatch, Summit and Weber counties and visitors are expected to be traveling all along the Wasatch Front.
“It helps communities understand exactly what will be required for success. We need them going into this process eyes wide open, comfortable with their commitments and prepared to execute at a high level,” Wilson said in a statement. “We want our communities to love the Olympics and Paralympics and to feel blessed by the experience long after the flame is extinguished.”
‘There to understand’
While the Utah visitors have gotten incidental glimpses of competition, typical activities included tours of Olympic venues and even some time in classroom-type settings. They also walked a lot.
“We were not there for game attendance,” said Harvey, who visited Cortina. “We were there to understand the machinery behind the Games — the command centers, security integration, municipal coordination and venue logistics that make competition possible.”
The visit gave him a glimpse into the security and safety precautions required at an event like the Olympics, the large number of volunteers who are needed and more. He focused on learning how the curling events in Cortina were organized and conducted. Ogden was the host city for curling during the 2002 Winter Games in Utah, and though the city wasn’t picked to host the sport in 2034, Harvey is keeping his fingers crossed.
Ogden is home to a facility on the Weber State University campus that would be “perfect for curling. I just have this feel that we’re going to do something, if it’s not curling, something really good to complement 2034 up at our ice sheet,” he said.
Toliver put a focus on learning about “visitor experience” — the sort of things Olympic organizers plan, outside of actual sports events, to make coming to the games fun, enjoyable and as hassle-free as possible. Visit Ogden, the entity she leads, promotes tourism in Ogden and the rest of Weber County.
“How easy is it for them? What does transportation look like? What does activation look like?” she said.
Making Ogden a fun, inviting place in 2034 for visitors will be one of Toliver’s focuses, perhaps through the broadcast of Olympic events on public, big-screen TVs and activities at public locations. While some in Weber County hold out hope that curling will come to Ogden again, people will be traveling through the locale at the very least en route to places like Snowbasin. Toliver also hopes to engage the Ogden-area community.
Toliver said travel costs of the varied Utah visitors, notably airfare and lodging, were covered by the organizations and governmental units they represented. Two Ogden officials traveled to Italy: Nadolski and his chief of staff, Cindy Weloth, the lead in Olympic planning for the city, and the city covered their airfare and hotel expenses. Harvey said Weber County covered his airfare and lodging, though none of the officials yet had a firm estimate of the cost of the Italy trip.
Whatever the case, they maintain, the expense is worth it.
“I would say it was worth it a thousand times over. I would say it would be highly irresponsible of our communities to feel like we could do this without any education or experience in looking at how it’s done,” Toliver said.
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