Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Utah prepares for the 2034 Winter Games with guidance from IOC executives.
- Fraser Bullock emphasizes learning new practices despite past success in 2002.
- Utah's organizing committee, approved by the IOC, will manage the $4 billion event.
SALT LAKE CITY — When a top International Olympic Committee executive arrives in Utah Thursday, organizers of the state's 2034 Winter Games will be ready to listen.
"Part of the visit is an update from us. But the vast majority of it is them sharing best practices for new OCOGs (organizing committees for the Olympic Games) getting started," said Fraser Bullock, president and CEO of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games that was behind the successful bid to bring another Olympics to the state.
"Of course, we've been through it before so we understand it pretty well. But there's always new learning, and that's what we're looking forward to," Bullock said, adding he wants to hear about what's been successful in planning more recent Games. "Even though we did a great job in 2002, we're wide open to new ideas of how to do things even better."
IOC Olympic Games Executive Director Christophe Dubi is set to arrive in Utah Thursday afternoon and stay through Friday's announcement by Gov. Spencer Cox and other officials including from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee of who will serve on Utah's Olympic organizing committee. The new organization will be responsible for staging what will add up to a $4 billion privately funded event.
The IOC has already signed off on the makeup of Utah's organizing committee, Bullock said. The 69-year-old served as the chief operating officer of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City before helping the launch the bid, and he's expected to play a key role in the organizing committee.
Dubi is coming from Los Angeles, where he's been meeting with organizers of the 2028 Summer Games. The California city is dealing with the impact of deadly wildfires that have killed at least 29 people. More than 10,000 structures have been destroyed in the blazes, but apparently none were critical to hosting the Olympics.
Utah's Olympic organizers have nine years to put together another Games, and Dubi has long advised them not to be in a hurry to get going on detailed plans. But he told the Deseret News last week that decisions need to be made about utilizing what amounts to two additional years of preparations over the traditional schedule.
While it remains "urgent to wait with respect to Games organization," now is the time to set "priorities in what is the land of opportunity," Dubi said in a virtual interview from the IOC's Swiss headquarters. "What are the first programs we're going to tackle and deliver, so that we start involving the communities and kids in particular?"
The IOC executive also said he'll push Utah organizers to finalize plans for observing the next Olympics, the 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina, Italy. Those Games are spread across much of northern Italy, so Dubi said it will take "extremely well designed" plans to take in all the behind-the-scenes effort that goes into organizing what spectators see.
Joining Dubi in Salt Lake City will be another IOC official, Pierre Ducrey, the Olympic Games operations director. Dubi and other IOC officials as well as members of the IOC Future Host Commission were in Utah last April to tour venues, and outgoing IOC President Thomas Bach made a stop in the state last September.
