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Utah Gov. Spencer Cox unveils an art installation heralding the official name of the 2034 Winter Olympics and Paralympics — Utah 2034 — during a ceremony at the Salt Lake City International Airport on Monday, Nov. 24, 2025.

Photo supplied, Melissa Majchrzak/Utah 2034

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Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski speaks with the editorial board about the Ogden delegation's trip to Italy to discuss Olympic hosting duties at the Standard-Examiner in Ogden on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026.

Jared Lloyd, Standard-Examiner

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Snowbasin Resort Chief Operating Officer and General Manager Davy Ratchford speaks with the editorial board about the Ogden delegation's trip to Italy to discuss Olympic hosting duties at the Standard-Examiner in Ogden on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026.

Jared Lloyd, Standard-Examiner

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Weber County Commissioner Jim Harvey speaks with the editorial board about the Ogden delegation's trip to Italy to discuss Olympic hosting duties at the Standard-Examiner in Ogden on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026.

Jared Lloyd, Standard-Examiner

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Visit Ogden President and CEO Sara Toliver speaks with the editorial board about the Ogden delegation's trip to Italy to discuss Olympic hosting duties at the Standard-Examiner in Ogden on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026.

Jared Lloyd, Standard-Examiner

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Preparations for the first curling competition are made at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

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Editor’s Note: This is the first of three stories following a Standard-Examiner editorial board interview with the Ogden delegation attending the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics. This delegation includes Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski, Weber County Commissioner Jim Harvey, Snowbasin Resort Chief Operating Officer and General Manager Davy Ratchford and Visit Ogden President and CEO Sara Toliver. This interview was conducted before the delegation left for Italy.

OGDEN — Utah’s next crack at the Winter Olympics and Paralympics is still nearly a decade off, but there’s a lot of work to do in the meantime.

This week, a handful of Ogden-area officials will descend on the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics to gain insights into what Ogden City’s role can be within Utah’s hosting duties.

With Utah 2034’s alpine skiing events being held at nearby Snowbasin Resort, Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski said that the city will have a huge role in the overall event.

“Ogden stands to play an enormous role in the biggest event in the world and Ogden is finally at the table, and that’s a. big deal,” he said. “There’s been a lot of times where Ogden hasn’t been at the table and a lot of decisions happened and a lot of opportunities passed us by because people aren’t including us.”

He said Ogden is willing to step into whatever role needed.

“We want to be a helpful community,” he said. “We’ve told the Olympic organizing committee, ‘Whatever Ogden can do to be helpful, that’s what we’ll do.’ There’s a lot of decisions  that still need to be made about every single venue and how the layout of the games looks, but we stand to play an important role. And whatever that role is, we want to make sure that we’re prepared ot activate our downtown to support whatever those decisions are.”

Weber County Commissioner Jim Harvey said the world’s arrival will be a huge boost for the area.

“When people come and they come to the Olympics, tourism boosts,” he said. “Tourism matters up here. Weber County has all of these facilities — Snowbasin is obviously private — the ice sheet, the Golden Spike Events Center, Peery’s Egyptian Theater, the shooting complex, the archery center, Ogden-Eccles Conference Center, North Fork Park. Revenue, normally in other counties, that supports those facilities is paid by property tax. In Weber County, that’s not the case. It’s the tourism tax — the money generated from hotels, car rentals and restaurant tax that pays for the operation of all of those facilities.”

He said there’s a lot of reasons to care about this income stream.

“They come, they spend their money, that money’s taxed and then we use that to support the locals,” he said.

Looking at a more normal year for the Ogden area, Visit Ogden President and CEO Sara Toliver said tourism is a major contributor to the local economy.

“We figured for the calendar year 2024 that every single Weber County resident — from the youngest to the oldest — would’ve had to spend an additional $2,050 in the year to equal what visitors spent in the community in 2024,” she said.

Snowbasin Resort Chief Operating Officer and General Manager Davy Ratchford said they signed on to host the Olympics to show what Snowbasin is best at.

“This is the Olympics of showing the world what a repeat venue can do so that it can be economically effective, it can be something that brings eyeballs and love of the sport to the community,” he said. “There’s 1,000 opinions on it. Should you do it? Should you not do it? Should the Olympics exist? You could go through so many things, but what I look at is, ‘When do you get an opportunity to show your very best to anybody, any group, any entity out there?’ We get a second opportunity to do what makes us great. … I want the world to see how hard we work at making (Snowbasin) great.”