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

Opening Ceremonies for the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, on Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News 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. 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. Visitors take photos at the Olympic cauldron of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics at the Arco della Pace in Milan, Italy, on Saturday, Feb.

7, 2026. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News 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.

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.