Utahns will be hearing a lot more from Nathan Chen in the coming years.
No, the Salt Lake City-based figure skater who won gold at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing hasn’t announced he will be returning to defend his men’s singles medal at next year’s Winter Games in Italy. But Chen will be a force for a future Olympics.
He is one of at least eight Olympic and Paralympic athletes chosen to serve on the steering committee for the 2034 Olympics and Paralympics in Salt Lake City. The committee, announced Wednesday, includes about 32 members in total. In a news conference announcing the formation of that group and several subcommittees, Fraser Bullock, executive chair and president of the newly formed 2034 Olympic Organizing Committee, said organizers were shooting for a mix of business, sport, community and political leaders.
“And Nathan Chen, of course. We had to add Nathan in there,” Bullock said, “because he’s the Utah story.”
Chen has credited reverberations from Utah’s 2002 Olympics, which were held when he was 3 years old, for providing a tailwind on his path to skating glory in the Winter Games. Recently graduated from Yale University, he has not competed in any major skating events this Olympic cycle but also has not formally said he won’t try to qualify for the 2026 Winter Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy.
Chen served on the athlete advisory group for the 2034 bid committee.
“I know firsthand,” he told The Salt Lake Tribune in 2022, “how inspiring the Olympics can be.”
(Julie Jag | The Salt Lake Tribune) Olympic figure skating champion Nathan Chen, left, shakes the hand of Senate President Stuart Adams in 2022.
The purpose of the steering committee is to provide a wide range of perspectives for the 2034 board of directors and serve as an advisory panel. The steering committee has no spending authorization. Additionally, its members will not be able to vote on official Olympic Organizing Committee matters.
The group will meet quarterly in conjunction with the Olympic Organizing Committee board. Those meetings will be open to the public. The first joint meeting is scheduled to be held online Thursday at 9 a.m.
While they will not gather independently, steering committee members are expected be informed by serving on or taking reports from numerous subcommittees that will meet independently of the executive board.
The steering committee counts both past Olympic and Paralympic champions — such as Chen, Ted Ligety (Alpine skiing) and Chris Waddell (sit ski) — and current hopefuls like Kaysha Love (bobsled) and Jordan Stolz (long track speedskating) among its members.
Ligety, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who was a forerunner during the 2002 Games, said he hopes to give input on both big-picture concepts and the nitty-gritty of hosting the Games.
“I had a lot of thoughts and opinions and views on race courses and how to make them more exciting, both from an athlete standpoint and a viewer standpoint,” he said. “So [I’ll be] trying to bring some of my experience and thoughts into that.”
(Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune) Alpine skiing athlete Ted Ligety speaks in 2017.
City and state leaders on the steering committee hail from along the Wasatch Front and Back. They include Park City Mayor Nann Worel and state Sen. Luz Escamilla of Salt Lake City. New CEO Brad Wilson, a former Utah House speaker, said last week that one of the first objectives of the Olympic Organizing Committee is to unite Utah’s 29 counties around the 2034 Games. However, none of the steering committee members on the list released Wednesday represented an area south of Spanish Fork.
Most steering committee members come from the business world. That includes David Lockwood, CEO of the packaging company Packsize, and Matthew Prince, who founded the computer security company Cloudflare and has been deemed the richest man in Utah by Forbes. It estimates he is worth $4.7 billion.
In addition to his steering committee duties, Prince has been picked to run one of the numerous subcommittees organizers will form in the next nine years. Prince, who owns The Park Record, will head the technology and innovation panel.
“Technology is one of the big three, in my in my book, for delivery of the Games,” Bullock said, “between venues, transportation and technology. That’s the heartbeat of the Games.”
In a call with reporters Wednesday, officials spelled out an organizational structure in which myriad such subcommittees will inform the process. The steering committee will, in turn, relay information to the board and the executive leadership, which includes Bullock, Wilson and co-chair Steve Starks. Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and Gov. Spencer Cox are honorary chairs.
Those subcommittees range from technology and innovation to impact and legacy to ethics. In addition to Prince, the executive board named a handful of other subcommittee chairs Wednesday.
The steering committee members
Dani Aravich, Boise (Paralympian).
Scott Beck, Park City.
Maura Carabello, Salt Lake City.
Nathan Chen, Salt Lake City (Olympian).
Carine Clark, Orem.
Sen Luz Escamilla, Salt Lake City.
Miles Hansen, Salt Lake City.
Rep. Jon Hawkins, Pleasant Grove.
Colin Hilton, Park City.
Christena Huntsman, Salt Lake City.
Tanja Kari, Salt Lake City (Paralympian).
Ted Ligety, Park City (Olympian).
David Lockwood, Park City.
Kaysha Love, Herriman (Olympian).
Sen. Mike McKell, Spanish Fork.
Mayor Erin Mendenhall, Salt Lake City.
Derek Miller, Salt Lake City.
Brad Mortensen, Ogden.
Catherine Raney Norman, Salt Lake City (Olympian).
Brad Parry, Salt Lake City.
Matthew Prince, Park City.
Nathan Rafferty, Park City.
Brad Rencher, Alpine.
Lacy Richards, West Haven.
Hanna Skandera, Denver.
Jordan Stolz, Kewaskum, Wisconsin (Olympian).
Chris Waddell, Park City (Paralympian).
Mayor Nann Worel, Park City.
Subcommittees
Arts and Culture
Chair: Steve Price.
Athletes’ Commission
Chair: Catherine Raney Norman.
Athletes’ Housing
Chair: Lindsey Vonn (Olympian).
Host Communities
Chair: Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall.
Vice Chair: Park City Mayor Nann Worel
Sport and Venues
Chair: Colin Hilton.
Technology and Innovation
Chair: Matthew Prince.
