Salt Lake City Named the Host of the 2034 Winter Olympics

At 3 am Mountain Time on June 24th, over a thousand people gathered in downtown Salt Lake to hear the news from the IOC: Salt Lake City has won their Olympic bid to host the 2034 Winter Olympics.

The last time that the Winter Olympics took place in the US was in 2002, when SLC hosted The Games (and the US Team swept the halfpipe with Ross Powers winning gold, Danny Kass winning silver, and JJ Thomas, bronze; on the women's side, Kelly Clark won gold). Park City was the site of the infamous halfpipe, only the second time snowboarding was an Olympic discipline.

A lot has changed since the 2002 Winter Games. It goes without saying that the trick progression has skyrocketed and halfpipes have gotten bigger (current regulations on halfpipe walls are de rigeur 22 feet)—it's been over twenty years.

In 2002, Transworld Snowboarding published an article about the men's halfpipe competition saying, "It will probably go down as the biggest day in snowboard history." While it definitely was a historic day, claims to "the biggest day in history" are always a tough one to make, but we appreciate the excitement. The full article is pretty awesome, read it here for a glimpse into the recent past.

"A few facts helped guide the fate of the 2002 men's Olympic halfpipe event, held February 11 in Park City, Utah: America is the birthplace of snowboarding, "boo" means the same thing in any language, and snowboarders are derelicts with any amount of precious metal hanging around their necks." TWS, February 2002

In addition to the trick progression, the advancements in park building technology, and the fact that two of three 2022 medalists now coach the US Snowboard Team, as it concerns the Olympics and its evolution with snowboarding, possibly most notable is the variety of snowboarding disciplines that are included in The Games. It's no secret that snowboarding is a very popular sport for viewers and so the IOC has continued to expand its offerings. Earlier this year, FIS took over the Freeride World Tour and officially recognized "freeride" as a discipline of snowboarding . What does this mean for 2034 in SLC, a hub of backcountry riding? No idea, but there's a lot of time for things to evolve and we'll all be watching what happens, of course.

When it comes to what we know, as we reported earlier this winter , there has been talk about having the big air venue in Salt Lake City's downtown, potentially utilizing a scaffolding jump in the Park Place parking lot, close to the Delta Center, the home of the Utah Jazz.

Are SLC Airbnb hosts excited? How will this affect traffic in the canyons? Will Shaun White be there as a commentator? Will United remain the official Olympic partner of the US Team when the SLC airport is the worst for United flyers? Will the airport United terminal get better? These are important questions we don't have answers to.