Logan Stefanich is a reporter with KSL, covering southern Utah communities, education, business and tech news.
SALT LAKE CITY — With the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics now firmly in the rearview mirror, Utah leaders are returning from Italy with new ideas and their sights set on 2034, when the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games return to the Beehive State.
On Wednesday, a handful of those leaders shared their insights and experiences during a panel discussion hosted by the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.Natalie Gochnour, director of the Gardner Institute, reflected on a statement made by former NBC Sports president and Olympic ambassador Dick Ebersol, who described the 2002 Winter Olympics as "far and away, the most successful Olympics, summer or winter, in history."Of course, a lot has changed for Utah since then.For one, the state's population has grown from 2.3 million in 2002 to about 3.5 million today. By 2034, Gochnour said the population could nearly double from what it was in 2002, to nearly 5 million people.'We are planning for decades'Brad Wilson, CEO of Utah's 2034 Winter Games and former Utah House Speaker, said he believes Utah's previous Olympic hosting experience gives the state a leg up in preparation for 2034."We also have the advantage of getting our Games awarded to us three years earlier than is normal," Wilson said, adding that the added time allows the organizing committee to take a different approach than it did in 2002."We are not planning an event for 17 days. We are planning for decades when we think about this," Wilson said. Jennifer Wesselhoff, president and CEO of Visit Park City, is introduced during a March Newsmaker Breakfast discussing the Olympics in Salt Lake City on Wednesday. Jennifer Wesselhoff, president and CEO of Visit Park City, echoed Wilson's future-thinking sentiment.Wesselhoff said Park City and Summit County as a whole have started to think about the Olympic Games as a "catalyst" to advance infrastructure priorities in the county related to transit and transportation."We host millions and millions of visitors a year, and those visitors have an impact to our quality of life. So how do we balance that? And how do we use the Games as a catalyst to make some of these improvements that we want to make as part of our long-range vision that will last long beyond 2034?" she asked.What about the snow?With a solid amount of infrastructure in place from the state's last time hosting, Wesselhoff said Utah doesn't necessarily need to reinvent the
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