Salt Lake City’s 2002 Winter Olympics hold a special place in Park City Councilor Tana Toly’s heart.
“I was living in Old Town, similar to where I live now,” she said. “It was incredible to turn 21 during the Olympics and also be downtown every single day, every single night, just watching the amazing opportunity that Park City and Utah had had.”
Fast forward to 2026, and she was part of the International Olympic Committee’s Observers Programme at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. Its goal was to give future host cities insight into Olympic operations. Toly observed everything from venue security to how to properly handle medals during a ceremony.
For her, all of these experiences can help Utah pull off another successful games.
“I think it was so amazing for me to be there with having been through the 2002 Olympics,” she said. “2002 looks a lot different in this world than 2026, and so you can't just take what we did in 2002, you do have to continue to evolve.”
Now that the Milan Cortina games are over, Toly and other local Olympic organizers are reflecting on what can help them plan for 2034.
Key leaders from Park City, Salt Lake City and Weber County discussed these lessons and strategies at a March 25 public forum hosted by The Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute and moderated by institute Director Natalie Gochnour.
Director of Strategic Initiatives & Olympic Planning at the University of Utah Scott Doughman was eager to share his biggest takeaway.
“Plan early, plan early, plan early,” he said. “If I had a little clicker for the number of questions I asked, it probably would have exceeded 10,000, and that would probably been my number one response from these amazing Italians that were part of the, you know, production of the whole thing.”
When Gochnour asked how organizers plan to deal with challenges that will inevitably arise, Utah 2034 CEO Brad Wilson chimed in with an analogy.
“To be a good skier, you have to keep your knees bent,” he said.
In other words, be adaptable.
“We can get out ahead of all the things that are must haves in terms of executing the games and being super prepared,” he said. “And so we're really focused on that right now, so that if or when something unpredictable happens that throws us off center, we're ahead on everything else, and we can pivot and adapt and work on the kind of urgent crisis of the day.”
Local leaders like Toly also have their eyes on big projects.
After visiting Cortina and observing some of the challenges the small mountain town faced with transporting fans and athletes, she thinks Utah’s host cities need to plan as early as possible for projects essential to their role.
“We will have a plan B, but we want to have that type of infrastructure ready to go, you know, a couple years before, so we even know that it's working, and we can get the trial and error out before the Olympics comes,” she said. “Those types of things have to be decided by a council now. Eight years goes really fast.”
Not long after her return from Italy, the Park City Council voted to approve a new park-and-ride project — something that could play a key role in the city’s transportation infrastructure in 2034.
One thing Toly thinks could get transportation or other infrastructure projects off the ground faster is teamwork between the other host communities. She recently met with Utah Sen. John Curtis about it.
“He wants to hear from a united Wasatch Back on what do you need when it comes to transportation and infrastructure so he can help with those federal dollars,” she said. “But that does take all of us working together, because it's not just Park City and it's not just Wasatch Back or just Salt Lake. It's going to take the entire community.”
Between all the rigid planning that has to take place, Toly also wants to keep the spirit and fun of the Olympics alive. One of her favorite experiences this year was attending an event after the biathlon, which she described as similar to an Oktoberfest.
“There were 19,000 people, and you've just learned a lot about crowd control, but also about how to have fun,” she said. “The vibes were amazing. And I really want to incorporate that as much as we can into our own town.”
