Park City Mayor Nann Worel will be in the room when IOC officials vote to award the 2034 Winter Olympics on July 24 in Paris. Salt Lake City is widely expected to be named host, as it is the only bid under consideration.
Days later Worel will have the chance to experience the Summer Olympics. That’ll kick off on July 26 with an opening ceremony in boats down the Seine.
The mayor wasn’t in town during the 2002 Games, which like the 2034 plan, includes sporting events in Summit and Wasatch counties.
“Because I’ve never experienced an Olympics, I think it’s important that I go and experience the flow of it,” Worel said. “How is it structured? How do people move around? How do people interact? How do they feed that many people that are going to be in town? What does security look like?”
Park City is spending $12,000 to send Mayor Worel to France.
Summit County is also spending thousands to send county council chair Malena Stevens. She says the trip is important to stay engaged.
“We have a really big opportunity through the Olympics to be able to accelerate some of our infrastructure improvements throughout the county, in particular in Kimball Junction and potentially on SR-248. And if we’re not at the table, if we're not showing up, if we're not engaging with the committee that is planning, I’m afraid that we will be forgotten.”
To help prepare, Park City, Summit County and the Park City Chamber of Commerce are planning to submit a request for proposal on July 29 to find a consultant that can help them prepare for the 2034 Winter Games.
Chamber CEO Jennifer Wesselhoff, who is also traveling to Paris, says the goal is to learn from other Olympic host communities.
“It may be a business, it may be an individual person,” Wesselhoff said. “It may be people who have experience with past Games, winter or summer. So we’ll be spreading a wide net.”
Wesselhoff said they hope to complete work with the consultant before state lawmakers convene early next year for the legislative session.
“In case there are items in that action plan that we feel like we need to begin advocating for right now related to the legislative session in January,” she said. “It will be a fairly quick process, but we are including active public engagement and stakeholder engagement in that RFP.”
IOC officials are expected to vote to award the 2034 Olympics around 3:30 a.m. local time July 24. A live watch party is planned at the Salt Lake City and County Building in Washington Square. Park City will be hosting its own celebration at Utah Olympic Park later in the day at 4 p.m.
