IOC president coming to Utah

SALT LAKE CITY — International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry is set to spend a day in Utah next week with organizers of the 2034 Winter Games.

During her overnight visit on Sept. 23, Coventry is expected to include meetings with Gov. Spencer Cox, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and leaders of the Utah Legislature as well as tours of Olympic venues and a stop at a Salt Lake City elementary school.

An Olympic champion swimmer from Zimbabwe, Coventry was elected the IOC's first woman and first African president last year and is likely to preside over Utah's second Winter Games. She succeeded Thomas Bach, who announced in Paris in 2024 that Utah would host again.

Coventry hasn't been to Utah since coming to the state years ago to teach a swimming clinic. Her stop is part of a longer trip to the United States, which is also hosting the next Summer Games in 2028 in Los Angeles.

"Of course, we're extremely excited," Fraser Bullock, president and executive chair of the Organizing Committee for the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, told the Deseret News, calling the visit informal.

He invited Coventry to visit Utah last February, when the pair sat down together during the 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina, Italy. Bullock said then that the new leader of the Switzerland-based IOC was eager to come.

"She's very gracious to make time in her calendar to fit in this trip between other obligations in the United States," Bullock said. He said organizers want her "to experience the beauty of Utah, the outstanding people that we have here (and) the warm friendliness that everyone exudes."

It will also be a chance for her to discuss the organizing committee's work. Tuesday, the steering committee for the 2034 Winter Games met, reviewing new programs aimed at using the Olympics to educate students and making sports more accessible to them.

The board overseeing the organizers of the privately funded Winter Games that have a $4 billion price tag, money expected to be raised largely from the sale of broadcast rights, sponsorships and tickets, also held a private meeting.

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