Olympic dreams in Park City: Local athletes are hard at work as 2034 announcement draws near

Members of the U.S. women's alpine ski team train in Park City as the 2034 Olympic announcement draws near. Photo: Courtesy Lauren Macuga

"It is honestly insane to think that I could be competing in the Olympics at home. It doesn't get any better than that."

PARK CITY, Utah – Excitement is building in Park City and across the state of Utah as the July 24 Olympic announcement draws near.

On Monday, the SLC-UT delegation, including Park City Mayor, Nann Worel will be departing for Paris, where the official announcement will happen. Members of the Utah delegation, which includes Governor Spencer Cox and Salt Lake City Mayor, Erin Mendenhall, will give a final presentation to the International Olympic Committee before the final vote, which will take place at 3:35 a.m. local time July 24th.

“As we approach the exciting Olympic announcement this week, I’m thrilled to see the energy of a unified community coming together to celebrate this momentous occasion and turn our focus to preparing for the future.”

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While officials and community members ready for the excitement of a long-anticipated official announcement, many Olympic hopefuls have been hard at work in Park City all summer long. From winter sport athletes like the US Ski Team’s Lauren Macuga, who grew up skiing with the Park City Ski & Snowboard club to 5,000 and 10,000 meter runner and US favorite Grant Fisher, who has been training in Park City in preparation for this year’s Paris Olympics. Park City, it seems, is a thriving training center for Olympians of all sorts.

“It is honestly insane to think that I could be competing in the Olympics at home. It doesn’t get any better than that. My goal is to be there and to aim for gold. I will be thinking about the SLC Olympics for the next 10 years,” Macuga said after a training session on Monday afternoon.

This week, several of the national teams based in Park City are holding training camps here. Macuga and her teammates on the U.S. Ski Team’s women’s alpine teams – both tech and speed teams – are in Park City over the next two weeks for their national team camp. They will be doing lots of physical testing and training time at the USANA Center of Excellence, running intervals in the nearby Park City mountains and even doing some sky diving.

“We all dream about going to the Olympics and of course when we are all together we are going to talk about them,” Macuga said about the vibe that’s in the Park City air. “It definitely brought a buzz to the training camp. Got us all working harder, you could really see everyone doing their best and it’s exciting because we could all be in our prime then (in 2034) and be a force to be reckoned with.”

Skiers trade skis for skates during a cross-training session at Park City Ice Arena. (Photo courtesy Lauren Macuga)

The U.S. Freeski Team is set to kick off their first summer conditioning camp this week in Park City, too. Along with performance testing in the gym, athletes will take advantage of the Utah Olympic Park air bag, attend classroom presentations on nutrition and media training and enjoy lots of team bonding activities throughout the week.

On the aerials side, the team has been spending countless hours at the Utah Olympic Park water ramps perfecting their jumps and training new skills, including Chris Lillis who is working on perfecting his five spins and three flips trick.

The Utah Olympic Park will be throwing a big party on Thursday, July 24 starting at 4 p.m., where members of the Park City community will gather to celebrate the news. Local officials, athletes and representatives from the venues where the 2034 Games will take place, like the UOP, Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley will be speaking at the event.