My longtime friend and colleague Catherine Raney Norman stood at the microphone on the top floor of The Leonardo in Salt Lake City, addressing a crowd of over 50 sport, business and community leaders. It was the final board meeting of the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games.She reminisced of that day this past summer — July 24, 2024 — when the International Olympic Committee awarded us the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Mission accomplished!In opening her remarks, following an inspirational video with Utah’s Katherine Heigl, her voice trembled as she talked about the athletes who were so dear to her heart. A four-time Olympic speed skater herself, she proudly told the crowd about Kaysha Love, a Herriman track star whose college coach at the University of Reno-Las Vegas pointed her back to Utah to try bobsled at the Utah Olympic Park in Park City. Today, she’s one of the best in the world, fresh off a podium finish in Latvia.She singled out Park City native Lauren Macuga, who got her start in a local Youth Sports Alliance program. She had a career-best fourth in a World Cup downhill just a few days earlier. In the room were great champions like Olympic and Paralympic medalists Shannon Bahrke, Nathan Chen, Ted Ligety, Chris Mazdzer and Chris Waddell, whom she called out by name.What motivated me personally to be a part of the core bid team that brought the Winter Games back to Utah was never the weeks of events in February and March of 2034 that will attract the world. Make no mistake, that will be a remarkable time in our state.To me, what’s important about the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games is the power that sport can have on the next generation of youth and its impact on communities. That is why the athletes in the room — these great champions of sport — were so important to Catherine. And so important to me.“We’re very relatable to all of the kids in our community,” she said. “Some of them are facing food insecurity, right? Some of them are challenged to try to go on to higher education. But we have athletes that can come out and share their story and be relatable.”I’ve experienced a truly meaningful career working with Olympic and Paralympic athletes. Across 11 Olympics, I’ve stood in the finish area with over 75 medalists. But when I think of them, I don’t think first about their medal-winning accomplishments. I think about the magic of gold medalist Derek Parra inspiring a 7 year old at the Olympic oval who gets to try figure skating.I think of Chris Waddell motivating thousands by straining his arms, hand-wheeling his chair up Mt. Kilimanjaro, and inspiring the world. I remember the colorful Shannon Bahrke running around a banquet room with an Olympic torch to exhort attendees to step up and support young speed skaters. And I remember the inquisitive faces of our aspiring youth from the ornate hall of the Gold Room in the Utah state capitol to the Palais des Congrès de Paris as they helped tell the story of Utah communities who are embracing the power of sport.It’s not about the gold medal. It’s about the joy and inspiration athletes bring to youth and to communities.I was a part of a small, knowledgeable and passionately dedicated team that helped bring the Games back to Utah. It was a singular, binary goal that was highly measurable — we either got the Games or we didn’t. Under the leadership of Catherine Raney Norman and Fraser Bullock, we chose community as our selling point. With Catherine, we elevated the role of athletes, young and old. We showed how athletes can elevate communities!Unlike 2002, this was not a bid about building venues. To that point, it was one of sustainability in using what we had and not building more.I think back 30 years to a time when Park City was focused on building the brick-and-mortar of Olympic venues. Today I see a community truly benefiting from a culture of sport that wasn’t present a few decades back. Our youth from all ethnic backgrounds have opportunities like never before. And our community benefits from the good citizens sport produces.I look forward to be a cheering spectator for the Games in 2034. But what I’m most inspired about are the opportunities for our children to experience the joy and power of sport over the coming decides here in our Olympic and Paralympic community.The post Ridgelines: Salt Lake City-Utah 2034 — mission accomplished appeared first on Park Record.