Here’s what Utah’s 2034 Winter Games organizers plan to do this year

The Olympic and Paralympic Cauldron Plaza at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. | Tess Crowley, Deseret News Raise more money.

Finalize a plan. Start reaching out to Utahns statewide. Those are what organizers of Utah’s 2034 Winter Games want to accomplish in the coming months, after spending much of the first part of the year focused on Italy’s recently ended Olympics and Paralympics for athletes with disabilities.

“Really, this year our plan is to plan,” said Brad Wilson , the CEO of the Organizing Committee for the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Much of the work will be done behind the scenes. But not all.

This fall, the organizing committee intends to launch a pilot program in at least six school districts in both urban and rural parts of Utah, Wilson said, to teach students about the values of the Olympics as well get them more involved in sports. The K-12 program, being developed with one of the $20 million donors to the organizing committee’s Podium34 fundraising effort, Ken Garff for Good , is still being put together, he said, but the pilot locations should be finalized by the end of next month. The goal is not only to see the Olympic lessons taught in classrooms and school gyms statewide but also across the country, Wilson said.