Here's what top Team USA skaters just said about Utah's 2034 Winter Games

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Ilia Malinin and Amber Glenn discussed Utah's 2034 Winter Games preparations.
• Malinin emphasized a balanced environment for athletes' comfort and performance.
• Glenn highlighted the need for a healthier and safer figure skating atmosphere.

WEST VALLEY CITY — For a figure skater known to the world as the "Quad God," Ilia Malinin seemed pretty down to earth at the Maverik Center in West Valley City, where he and other Team USA stars were set to perform on the same ice that will be used for the sport at the 2034 Winter Games.

Will Malinin, a three-time world champion and an Olympic gold medalist in the figure skating team event known for his quadruple jumps, still be competing then?

"I sure hope so. We'll see how my body holds on to then, but I'm looking forward to being here no matter what," the 21-year-old told reporters during a break from rehearsing for Thursday night's Stifel Stars on Ice show.

The arena built nearly three decades ago should be fine for the Olympics, he said.

"I like this. I generally think this is pretty cool," Malinin said. "I already envision how everything is going to look in 2034. I mean, again, I don't know if I'll be skating then or just here representing but either way, I'll really be excited and looking forward to how that's going to look."

His advice about transforming the former longtime home of the Utah Grizzlies minor league hockey team into the venue for what's expected to be the most watched events at the 2034 Winter Games?

"I think it really just comes down to what the whole vibe around it is going to be, the whole theme of what Utah is going to bring, and the atmosphere that they want to show to the world," Malinin said.

For figure skating events in 2034, "it makes sense to just have it be as packed as possible and really make it engaging for the audience to enjoy," he said, while ensuring "it also (works) really well for the skaters, because in the end, we're the ones on the ice. This event is around us."

Finding a balance for athletes in 2034

The pressure that can create is something Malinin experienced at his first Olympics, the 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina, Italy. He had been widely seen as a favorite for an individual gold medal, but after falling during the men's free skate, finished in eighth place.

How skaters competing at the Maverik Center in 2034 are affected depends on "how the environment of the arena is going to be," Malinin said, as well as whether the media is able "to get in our face as fast as possible" before and after a performance.

"Sometimes, I think it's good to find a balance where we feel comfortable enough to be able to open up," he said, adding athletes have prepared for years for what is "one of the biggest accomplishments of our careers."

Another Team USA skater at this year's Olympics, Amber Glenn, agreed there's a need for what she termed "a healthier and safer environment in figure skating and I'm hoping we can do that in 2034."

Both Glenn and Malinin were nominated for the international award honoring the best example of fair play at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, for their efforts to look out for their competitors. Malinin won for offering words of encouragement to gold medalist Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan.

Glenn, also a team gold medalist, finished fifth in the women's individual competition in Milan. During the finals, Glenn stepped between a TV camera and Japanese silver medalist Sakamoto Kaori, who was crying over her performance.

"A lot of the times, the cameras, the fanfare, it can get a bit extreme. We saw that get to some of the athletes in Milan. I think we really need to consider athletes' mental health before the whole spectacle of the Olympic Games," she said.

Athletes need to be able to "just go out there and skate our best and meet our goals. Which is tough at such an elite type of competition. But we need to stop treating it as if it's life or death. Because it made it feel like it was."

Glenn noted the Maverik Center, which can seat about 12,000, might be small for an Olympic venue but "will be intimate." Her career, she said, was inspired by watching U.S. skater Sarah Hughes win gold in Salt Lake City's larger Delta Center at the 2002 Winter Games.

The 2026 women's gold medalist Alysa Liu, wearing a Yungblud "Don't Forget to Live" tour T-shirt for the rehearsal, was surprised to hear the Maverik Center would be an Olympic figure skating venue in 2034.

"Really? I had no idea. ... I mean, it's fire. I love arenas. I like the seat colors," she said, nodding toward the bright red seats already filling up with VIP fans. Liu said Milan's figure skating venue, which seated less than 10,000, "wasn't too big either."

Liu said she's not thinking yet about an Olympics so far away, and had no suggestions for Utah organizers.

"I can skate on pretty much any ice," she said, smiling broadly.

Read the full article at Deseret.com.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

Related topics

2034 Utah Winter OlympicsOlympicsUtah

Lisa Riley Roche

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