Another big step in Utah’s bid to host the 2034 Winter Games happens next week.

The Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games will make a virtual presentation on May 28 to the Europe-based Winter Olympic Federations that oversee snow and ice sports, ahead of a meeting by International Olympic Committee leaders next month that will determine if the bid advances to a final vote in July.

“It’s very important,” Fraser Bullock, the bid committee’s president and CEO, said of the upcoming, largely technical presentation. “The IOC weighs very carefully the opinions of the international federations because they are the partners on the ground, around the world, that make the competitions in the various sports happen.”

The IOC told the Deseret News that the federations are “very important stakeholders in the election of Olympic Winter Games hosts and are deeply involved in the ongoing dialogue” that’s part of the final stage of the new, less formal bid process that saw Salt Lake City named the IOC’s preferred host for 2034, and France’s French Alps bid, to the same status for 2030.

The IOC said the topics for presentations from both bids are their visions for:

• Sustainable Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, as it relates to the IOC’s “Olympic Agenda 2020+5″ reforms intended to control costs, focusing on “the maximum use of existing/temporary venues and how their Games project aligns with long-term city/regional development plans.”

• Games-time operations and the experience stakeholders can expect, especially athletes and international federations.

And their venue master plans, including:

• All competition and noncompetition venues, with an update on financing and long-term use and benefits for local communities of any new construction or upgrades.

• Main transport routes, transport modes and travel times.

• Main accommodation clusters, including for technical experts from the federations that want to be close to venues.

The IOC said “any feedback from the international federations” about what they hear from the bids “will be taken into consideration by the Future Host Commission for the Olympic Winter Games in the preparation of its report to the IOC Executive Board, which will make the decision about whether to recommend any preferred hosts for election by the IOC session” in July.

The Future Host Commission traveled to Utah in April with IOC executives and staff to see firsthand the venues originally used for the 2002 Winter Games and maintained since for both community and elite athletes, as well as the site of a new temporary jump in downtown Salt Lake City for big air skiing and snowboarding competitions.

The international federations are very familiar with Utah’s venues, said Colin Hilton, head of the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation that owns the Utah Olympic Park near Park City and continues to operate the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns and the Solider Hollow Nordic Center in Wasatch Mountain State Park near Midway.

The presentation, expected to last about an hour, including time for questions, will highlight “that we already have long established relations with these international federations because many of them come every year” for World Cups and other events, he said, with athletes from some 30 countries training and competing annually at Utah’s legacy venues.

That will continue, Hilton said, with assistance sought from the federations on improvements in the works, including new shading and lighting at the Olympic park’s bobsled, luge and skeleton track. Federations were also consulted on plans to move some 2034 events, such as curling, now set to be held at a larger temporary venue in the Salt Palace instead of the Weber County Ice Sheet.

“People call it the Utah way. It’s just good collaboration. We do this well. We have good people that have been doing this for over 20 years,” he said. “We feel there is enthusiasm behind our effort. This gathering is our way of showing we want to build upon our existing partnerships.”

Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and Park City Mayor Nann Worel will also join the presentation, Bullock said, but much of what’s showcased will be an overview of technical details like the venue overlays, the additional facilities added at Games time to accommodate sport needs as well as Olympic officials and the media.

“We basically build a small city,” said Bullock, who served as the chief operating officer of the 2002 Winter Games. Then, some 700 tents and 700 trailers were deployed throughout the venues, he said, calling it a significant expense in what has previously been described as a $2.45 billion privately funded budget to stage the 2034 Winter Games.

“This is high level,” Bullock said. “They just want to know we’ve done the work.”

Worel said she’ll have only a minute or so to talk about Park City.

“I just want to impress on them that our community has a really long history of supporting winter sport and we continue to do that as a regular host of the (freestyle skiing) World Cup at Deer Valley, and Utah Olympic Parks holds bobsled, luge and skeleton competitions all the time,” the Park City mayor said. “We’re very proud of the way our community loves sports.”

While Gov. Spencer Cox won’t be part of the federation presentation, he’s already talking about signing the contract to host just before the start of the 2024 Summer Games in Paris. Of course, that won’t happen until after the formal ratification of Utah as the host of the 2034 Games by a vote of the full IOC membership that’s set for July 24, a date celebrated as Pioneer Day in the state.

Cox said during his monthly PBS Utah news conference in May that the IOC delegation in Utah last month “left us with a tremendous amount of confidence. We like to brag about our state obviously. But it’s always fun to hear other people brag about your state. And that’s exactly what happened. They were incredible. They could not say enough good about Utah.”

The enthusiastic response from the IOC executives and Future Host Commission members wasn’t what the governor expected.

“I was actually kind of surprised, taken aback. I thought they would hold it a little closer to the vest, maybe. But they didn’t. They were just effusive in their praise of what we’ve done,” he said, starting with the first Olympics held in the state, the 2002 Winter Games, and continuing through the vision for 2034.

“So, yes, we are planning to be there to sign the agreement on July 24,” the governor said. “I hope nothing changes between now and then.”