Park City knows how to celebrate coming Olympics

It was a scene out of 2002.

Christy Shea, wearing her blue USA 2002 Roots beret, and her husband, Brian Grill, perused Olympic pins booth at a crowded sports venue.

But it wasn’t 2002. It was Wednesday, just hours after the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2034 Winter Games to Salt Lake City. Shea and Grill joined thousands of Utahns at the Utah Olympic Park in Park City as they celebrated the early-morning announcement well into the evening.

Shea was part of the throng outside the Salt Lake City-County Building when the city received the 2002 Games nearly three decades ago. She wanted to join the party again. “And I wanted to wear my hat.”

The festivities at the Utah Olympic Park included live music, vendors, activities, face painting, giveaways and an Olympian and Paralympian meet-and-greet. It also featured the Flying Ace All-Stars launching themselves acrobatically off jumps up to 60 feet in the air before splashing into the Spence Eccles Olympic Freestyle Pool. The team of skiers included Olympic medalists and future Olympic hopefuls as young as 11.

Mike Bennett, owner of Team Gear, appeared to be doing brisk business at his Olympic pins booth. He started selling pins out of his soccer store in the old Cottonwood Mall before the 2002 Winter Games. They went fast but when the Spirit of the Games store opened in the mall, his pin businesses dried up. After seeing a story on the news about pin trading on the news, he stuck his pins on a towel, rolled it up and headed to downtown Salt Lake City. They didn’t last long, and he has continued to sell pins at Utah Olympic venues ever since.

“It’s always been hot but not like today,” he said. “It’s crazy.”

The hot item? The original green Jell-O pin, one of the most sought-after 2002 souvenirs. In 1998, Aminco released 5,000 of the green gelatin food pins , retailing for $7. Soon, they took on a Beanie Baby-like mystique. Bennett had six of them Wednesday. He sold four at $100 a pop.

And in another blast from the past, Rulon Gardner, the gold medalist in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, Australia, was among the Olympians signing autographs and posing for photos with fans. He watched some of the 2002 Olympics from a hospital bed while recovering from frostbite after a snowmobiling accident. He lost the middle toe on his right foot.

“We’re here to support this. It’s finally time we’re getting the Olympics back to LA (in 2028), now we’re getting them back to Utah. There’s nowhere in the world where the Olympic spirit is more alive and proud than in Utah,” he said.

Gardner, who now lives in St. George, said the Games might be some years away but young kids are preparing now to compete in front of the home crowd in a USA uniform.

“To win a medal back here in America, that’s the biggest thing an athlete in America can do is say, ‘I got to win a gold medal in front of my family and friends,’” he said.

Paralympic archer Michael Lukow, who competed in Rio in 2016, was also signing autographs and meeting Olympics revelers. A roadside bomb took his right foot and damaged his left ankle while he was serving in the Army in Iraq. A Vietnam veteran introduced him to archery while he underwent rehabilitation at Fort Sam Houston.

“I think it’s awesome,” Lukow, who lives in Kearns, said of Utah landing the 2034 Olympics. “I think it will be really interesting to see how they get ready and how things go.”

Grill said he and Shea enjoy the excitement, cultural exchanges and patriotism that comes with the Olympics as well as the “overall theory of taking the politics aside and all just get together and be humans and compete.”

In 2002, Shea attended a hockey game, bobsled and moguls competitions and two medals ceremonies. She enjoyed the downtown scene and how easy it was to use public transportation to get around.

“It was a proud moment for Utah,” she said.

And one the state gets a chance to create again.