OGDEN — The 25th Olympic Winter Games in Milano-Cortina continue on, and a contingent of Ogden-area officials continue to learn as much as they can about welcoming the world ahead of Utah 2034.

But when they return from Italy, they all know that the clock is ticking down.

And Ogden doesn’t even need to wait eight years for a major test in welcoming the world.

“We’re prepared to host the first test event,” Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski said. “That’s something we want to brag about but also make sure people are aware of.”

Ogden will be playing host to the LGT World Men’s Curling Championship 2026 from March 27-April 4 at the Weber County Ice Sheet.

Weber County Commissioner Jim Harvey noted that this is a prime example of Weber County and Ogden preparing for a major event well ahead of time.

“To exemplify how we’re prepared, all of the ammonia plants, the chillers — all of that is done,” he said. “There’s new everything and it’s all done. We are ready to go and we’re still months away. We took our opportunities when we had some availability and redid all of that. That takes funding, it takes time, it takes expertise. You can’t just go buy an ice sheet chiller or an ammonia plant and expect, ‘Well, we’ll just pull it off the shelf.’ It takes months and years to be ready.”

Other major sporting events have been haunted by unfinished and unprepared venues.

In 2011, nearly 400 ticketed fans were left without seats at Super Bowl XLV when sections of temporary seating at Cowboys Stadium could not be finished in time for the game. And the completion of Milano-Cortina’s main ice hockey arena came with a day to go before the opening ceremonies.

Harvey said there’s a big reason Ogden’s venue is ready well ahead of its next major event.

“There are some folks behind the scenes that are just absolutely phenomenal at doing the right thing for the right reasons,” he said. “We’re lucky we have great people.”

But seeing to it that venues are up to the challenge of handling world-class events is one thing.

Nadolski said there’s also the building of the region’s Olympic legacy.

“One of the challenges the organizing committee put to us early on was, ‘We want you guys thinking about what you want your Olympic legacy to be,'” he said. “When we got together as a local organizing group and said, ‘What do we want our legacy to be,’ we wanted it to be about our youth and about our future and for our kids. We want to make sure there’s pathways in this community for kids that are in our schools and in our neighborhoods to find the peak of competition and opportunity.”

He said that means finding a regional athlete.

“In order for that to happen, if we set a goal of, ‘Let’s find an athlete in our community that can participate in these games or other games,’ we have to put infrastructure, programming and pathways in place for that,” he said.

Programs in place include Snowbasin’s ski team and the recently launched Ogden Untamed Sports Academy.

For now, the Olympics carry on in northern Italy while the Ogden-area delegation finishes its final meetings with Utah 2034 still a distant dream — but a dream for which the delegation will implement the knowledge gained this week to building toward.

Snowbasin Resort Chief Operating Officer and General Manager Davy Ratchford, who was born in Ireland and immigrated to the United States at age 13, said he’d never have imagined taking on the role of preparing a ski resort for the Winter Olympics, and that he has the best people to prepare with.

“I did not grow up in inner-city Dublin thinking I would host the biggest opportunity of 2034,” he said. “To do it with a group of people who care so much about it, that’s just fun. … It’s an honor; it’s great to do it with people that care just as much and have a passion behind it. That’s just wild to think about.”

Visit Ogden President and CEO Sara Toliver said she’s proud to be a contributor toward Ogden’s future hosting duties.

“To feel like I get this incredible opportunity to be a part of another pivotal, catalytic event for our community that — again, hopefully gives my kids opportunities to live, work and play here that we didn’t see when we were kids,” she said. “The gratitude for that is a really amazing opportunity to step back and just be grateful that we get to be a part of this and thankful that we hopefully get to be part of something that is just a game-changer for everyone that lives here and will appear eventually.”

Nadolski said the efforts to learn about hosting and implementing those lessons is fulfilling work.

“It’s more than just hosting an event,” he said. “We’re creating the context and the template with the decisions we’re making right now for life-changing opportunities for generations of Ogden families and kids.”