‘Simplicity is OK:’ What Italy’s Olympics taught organizers of Utah’s 2034 Winter Games

One of the most lasting lessons organizers of Utah’s 2034 Winter Games learned during Italy’s Olympics may have come from seeing some paper plates proudly displayed on a wall in a Milan classroom.

The plates were part of a program by the organizers of the recently concluded 2026 Winter Games to engage school children in the region by encouraging them to re-create a variety of Olympic-related items.

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There were elaborate replicas of the Games’ gold, silver and bronze medals, cauldron that held the Olympic flame, pictograms depicting individual sports, and even carefully detailed copies of artwork showcasing athletic feats.

But what stood out was something else, a set of ordinary paper plates with all but the rims cut away that had been arranged in the shape of the iconic symbol of the Olympics, the five interlocking blue, yellow, black, green and red rings.

“It doesn’t take a lot to have a big impact,” said Catherine Raney Norman, the vice president for development and athlete relations for the Organizing Committee for the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

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The art project, “literally, just small, colored plates in the colors of the rings, that’s how they made the Olympic rings,” Raney Norman, a four-time Olympic speedskater, said. “It’s very simple right? So I think it’s OK for us to lean into simplicity.”

That means tapping into “our families and our schools to help as well,” she said, as Italian parents and educators enthusiastically did, noting that “there’s a lot of ambition” surrounding what can be done in Utah to involve children in the Olympics.

Even as chair of the bid committee that brought Utah a second Winter Games, Raney Norman was pitching what was being called “Project 29,” a plan to offer Olympic sports opportunities to schools in each of the state’s 29 counties ahead of 2034.

A portion of the now more than $250 million in private donations already raised by the organizing committee through its unique “Podium34″ program is expected to go towards the education program.

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“Our hope is to execute, or at least pilot on, an education initiative as quickly as we can. But we also want to make sure that it’s set up for success,” Raney Norman said, adding it doesn’t need to be all that complicated.

“My biggest lesson from Milan-Cortina is, simplicity is fine. Really, like it’s OK to just do paper plates. Simplicity is OK in that it’s how you build that experience,” she said. “We don’t have to overthink. It’s easy to overthink when you’re planning a mega sporting event.”

Milan-Cortina’s Olympic education program was a “huge success,” with more than 1.5 million largely grade-school children participating, said Darren Hughes, the organizing committee’s vice president for operations and planning.

Hughes, a veteran of more than a dozen Olympics since working at Utah’s first Winter Games in 2002 kicked off a consulting career, said he was still surprised by the program’s effect on the community.

“They did this coolest little activation. They basically made an Olympic museum in the school. The tour guides were the students and they delivered the tours in both English and Italian,” Hughes said. “Each of the classrooms had contributed something to this museum.”

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Touring the work of the students “was actually really emotional,” he said.

The reason? It was a chance for the school to feel a sense of “ownership over the Games, somehow, or belonging to the Games,” he said. “These are school kids who might not have otherwise had an opportunity to connect to the Games … but they all had the Olympic spirit.”

High bar for Utah’s 2034 Winter Games

There already are big expectations for Utah’s next Olympics, which also carry a big price tag, $4 billion, money that is all anticipated to be raised from private sources including the sale of broadcast rights, sponsorships and tickets.

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The first Winter Games held in the state, in 2002, were widely viewed as one of the most successful ever, overcoming the impacts of both an international bribery scandal and the deadly Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the U.S.

The International Olympic Committee has set the bar high, with a top official declaring after Utah organizers made their first formal presentation in Italy that with so much already in place for 2034, there’s plenty of time to find ways to improve the Games.

“We have all the conditions for these Games to be outstanding,” the IOC’s Olympic Games executive director, Christophe Dubi, said at the meeting, urging organizers not to plan at this stage but instead to, “Think about innovations. Think about legacy. Think about elevate.”

And this time around, it’s the state, not Salt Lake City, serving as the official host. Gov. Spencer Cox and legislative leaders have made it clear they expect the entire state to be involved even though the Games will be held largely along the Wasatch Front.

Italy’s Games are a much different story, the first to have two official hosts, Milan, one of Italy’s largest cities, and Cortina, a mountain resort several hundred miles away that was the site of the 1956 Winter Games.

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The distance between venues in those and other locations scattered across Northern Italy required six separate villages to house athletes and made it difficult for spectators to see multiple sports due to what’s been described as an “emotional experience” getting around.

Italy’s decision to emphasize its iconic skiing and other venues despite how widespread they were meant many spectators headed to a single location and stayed put rather than attempting to travel to see other events.

Utah will have a much smaller footprint, with a single athletes village located once again at the University of Utah, no more than an hour away from any venue. But that comes with bigger crowds, especially since organizers plan to sell about twice as many tickets.

Kelsey Berg, the organizing committee’s director of government relations, said she’s “grateful that we have some different challenges” than Italian organizers faced although “it will be a challenge to have everyone in one spot.”

For Berg, who works closely with state and local officials, a key goal for the 2034 Games is a simple one, limiting interruptions in day-to-day activities. While that was never going to be easy, it’s clearly going to be harder than it was in Italy.

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“A benefit of the broader, more spread out Games is it doesn’t seem like it’s much of a impact,” she said. “Whereas here, obviously, we’ll have much more of a bigger impact of moving people around for the Games because it will be so compact.”

The governor and others who traveled to Italy to observe the 2026 Games were able to see how to continue to run services including those that “aren’t the most flashy, exciting things,” like trash pickup, when roads are shut down to accommodate Olympic traffic.

“Life still continues,” Berg said. “For residents, you want it to be a good experience. You don’t want it to be an obstacle … because it upends so much of their daily lives. It’s how do you have them participate and yet it be a blessing at the same time.”

In the end, Utahns will get out of the Games what they put in, she said.

“Everyone will do the Games their own way,” Berg said, just like they do for an event like Midway’s annual Swiss Days. “Some love it because they engage, they volunteer, they’re just willing to accept the traffic and the people” while others want to avoid it entirely.

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It’s important to government officials that both of the options work for Utahns, she said.

Berg said that’s “honestly because what we need is that public support to be able to host again. So if it just becomes a nuisance, you’re not going to have the general support and elected leaders reflect their constituents. … We can’t do it on our own.”

Utah’s Olympic pressure

Fraser Bullock, the organizing committee’s president and executive chair, acknowledged the expectations. Bullock, who was the chief operating officer for the 2002 Games and the leader of the bid effort, said that comes with experience.

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“Utah 2034 is viewed very positively, partly because of the relationships that have been built over the decades, partly because of the trust they have in us,” he said. “But they’re also looking to us to help advance the movement of the Olympics and the Paralympics.”

That’s an opportunity as well as an obligation, Bullock said, and it adds pressure.

“It doesn’t mean we have to be bigger and grander,” he said, noting finding ways of doing more with less is also important. “There are many areas we can look at in terms of enhancing the delivery of the Games while being more efficient.”

Those include broad areas like technology as well as solutions to specific issues, Bullock said, like better utilizing the free seats set aside for athletes, IOC members, sport officials and others in what’s called the Olympic family that were only about half full at the Milan-Cortina Games.

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Such improvements, though, would take place behind the scenes and organizers have a lot to live up to in terms of what the public sees.

“Let’s note that 2002 was a spectacular success and if we match that, we’ve done a great job. But of course, we aspire to be different and exciting and dynamic,” Bullock said, adding that even equaling what was accomplished at Utah’s first Olympics is still “a big undertaking.”

That doesn’t mean a repeat of 2002. With 40% more events in 2034, including new big air skiing and snowboarding competitions that will require a massive temporary jump to be built in downtown Salt Lake City, that couldn’t happen anyway.

Italy’s embrace of its widespread Games demonstrated the importance of focusing on strengths. After Paris staged an extravagant show throughout the 2024 Summer Games, Italy scaled back, stressing sustainability.

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Yet the 2026 venues had unique personalities, created by everything from situating seating to frame stunning views to sport production, the music, videos and other entertainment provided to engage fans before, during and after competitions.

All that combined “to create the excitement, the great spectator experience,” Bullock said, showcasing both the venue and the sport. “There’s an excitement and a vibe … that is really special. It’s not just the competition. It’s the whole experience of being there.”

Italy’s Games also immersed fans in their country’s culture, he said, allowing it “to shine through everywhere we went,” not just in the Opening Ceremonies that typically serve as a showcase for an Olympic host.

“You expect that flair to be there. But with the people, you could feel that Italian hospitality, that was spectacular, the friendliness of the people and their willingness to help in every way with the beautiful Italian accents. It was great,” Bullock said.

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In 2034, he said the United States will be celebrated along with Utah.

“We need to obviously stay true to Utah, its history, its values, its culture, but also recognize that we’re part of a great country,” Bullock said. “The U.S. is the host country and we need to recognize that.”

It’s Utah, though, that much is expected of in 2034.

“We had tons of pressure in ‘02 because we hadn’t done it before,” Bullock said. “This time around, yes, we know what to do because we’ve done it before. But it doesn’t change the magnitude of the task, which is a ton of work by a lot of dedicated people.”