Ten years ago tonight, now a decade past, 2,000 fans braved temperatures in single digits to welcome the Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games Flame to Memorial Park in Colorado Springs after an afternoon-long relay with 200 runners. The proud relay participants had endured snowy streets, traffic jams on the route from Monument through the Air Force Academy into the city and to the USA Olympic Complex. The flame had been in Denver the night before, and Colorado Springs turned out to welcome the flame, one week before the Opening Ceremony in Salt Lake City.

The runners chosen to carry the torch in Colorado Springs ranged in age from 12 to 82, including two time USOC President Bill Hybl, mayor Lionel Rivera, Olympic athletes, college and high school students, teachers, Fort Carson soldiers, Air Force Academy cadets, airline workers and retirees. Others included Salt Lake Tribune writer Dick Rosetta, blind local businessman Brian Smith, UCCS professor Dr Ginny Keatley, Noretta Watts, president of Colorado Amputees in Motion, marathoner Gina Garcia-Shaw and scores more who would be warmed on that bone-chilling day by the Olympic flame in their hands.

Thousands lined the route of the flame, many inspired by the light and the emotions of a nation still raw from the tragedy of September 11, 2001, in New York City.  Some 250,000 Americans had applied to carry the torch on the 13,500-mile run through 46 states than had begun in Atlanta on December 4. The Olympic Torch was carried across the nation, borne by runners using trains, motor vehicles, aircraft, boats, canoes and bicycles.



The 17-year-old Paralympic skier Allison Jones was the final runner to carry the Torch into Memorial Park, and she mounted the steps on the platform to ignite the cauldron and warm those who had come to the park to be part of the historic moment in the special city known across the world as America's Olympic city, the home of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) since 1978.

During the chilly evening ceremony, USOC President Sandra Baldwin dedicated the organization and the American team to the victims and families of the September 11 terrorist attacks. A few hours earlier, Gerri-Anne Satterfield ran the torch to honour her brother's memory. Satterfield's brother, George Howard, was killed September 11 while rushing toward the World Trade Center to help the injured. Satterfield received the flame from Cadet 1st Class Warren Halle (pictured below) at the Air Force Academy.

"As I ran the torch I kept thinking of my brother, saying to myself 'this one's for you'," said a visibly moved Satterfield to reporters.


Halle, the lone cadet to run the Torch, was elected by vote to represent the academy by his squadron. He dedicated his run to those fighting for America in the war against terrorism.

On February 8, three billion people around the world watched as a tattered American flag retrieved from the rubble of the World Trade Center, thanks to the resolve and courage of the USOC, was carried into the Olympic Games Opening ceremony at Rice-Eccles Stadium by eight US athletes and three New York City Port Authority police officers with the 211-member United States Olympic team and delegation.

The USOC's idea of bringing the cherished flag into the Opening Ceremony with the team had at first been rejected by the IOC as being too political. But some within the staff would not take no for answer, and three days before the Games, with the flag in the city and millions of Americans reacting with outrage thanks to media coverage, the IOC reversed the decision and the celebration was on.


The threadbare flag was borne to the base of the stage where the president of the United States, the president of the IOC and the president of the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee awaited. As the national anthem of the United States, the host nation, was played, a new and whole flag was raised, but the statement had been made – the reflection of a nation answered superbly.

Carrying the flag for the United States team were Kristina Sabasteanski (pictured above), a biathlete in the U.S. Army;  Lea Ann Parsley, a skeleton athlete and firefighter in Ohio; Stacy Liapis, a curler whose boyfriend was a firefighter; Todd Eldredge (pictured above), a three-time Olympian in figure skating; Angela Ruggiero, a hockey player and close friend of teammate Kathleen Kauth, who lost her father in the World Trade Centre attacks; Mark Grimmette, a three-time Olympian in luge; Chris Klug, a snowboarder with a liver transplant; and Derek Parra, a speed skater. The eight athletes were accompanied by three Port Authority policemen – sargent Tony Scannella, officer Frank Accardi and officer Curt Kellinger. An honour guard of NYPD officers and NYC firefighters was also on hand. When the flag was borne by the athletes and New York officers into the stadium, it was one of the most emotional moments in our nation's history, and Americans wept.

It was the end of a three-decade long quest by Salt Lake City to host the Winter Games.


The city was the American candidate city in 1966 when the 72 Games went to Sapporo and again in 1973 when Denver withdrew. Both Lake Placid and Salt Lake wanted to stand in for Denver, but Salt Lake gave up when no federal funding support could be found. The IOC went to Innsbruck instead in 1976.

The USOC chose Salt Lake as its candidate for the 1998 Games after unsuccessfully bidding Anchorage for 1992 and 1994. When Nagano won the 1998 Games, the USOC stood by the Utah City for 2002 and it won easily on the first ballot by the IOC on June 16, 1995 in Budapest.

When 52,000 fans saw the 1980 United States Olympic ice hockey team (pictured above) light the cauldron to open the Games, it began the most memorable Olympic Winter Games in history for the United States – 17 days that would unexpectedly stamp the USA, for the first time, as a winter sports power.

The high-energy evening completed a marvelous chain of events that had threatened the Olympic movement when the news of the bid scandal erupted in 1998.


Led by President Bill Hybl, the USOC moved swiftly to take a proactive role. Hybl appointed a special bid oversight commission chaired by senator George Mitchell in late 1998 that quickly reformed the domestic bid process and started the process of restoring the organization's reputation, as he had done as interim president several years before.

The panel, which included Ken Duberstein, Jeff Benz, Don Fehr and Roberta Cooper Ramo, moved at warp speed to address the issues and fashion the necessary reforms.

Meanwhile the battered Salt Lake Olympic Organising Committee turned to a Brigham Young University graduate and businessman, selecting Mitt Romney as its president in February 1999. Romney made shrewd, decisive moves, helped to calm jittery Games sponsors, found new sources of revenue, restored confidence internationally, and along with the USOC, a great staff at the organizing committee, and thousands of volunteers, got everything moving.

What helped to save these Games was a unique United States Olympic team itself, for the first time a genuine tapestry of America and its diverse population. A team of young men and women that bonded with millions of Americans in a way I had never seen since Lake Placid and the Miracle on Ice.


Long track speed skaters Derek Parra (pictured top) and Jennifer Rodriguez became the first Hispanic Americans to win medals in the Winter Games. Bobsledder Vonetta Flowers (pictured above with flag) became the first black athlete to win a gold medal in the history of the Winter Games. Male bobsledders Randy Jones and Garrett Hines, a pair of former football players from the south, became the first black men to win a medal in the Winter Games with their silver. Figure skater Naomi Lang became the first Native American to represent the USA in the Winter Games. Asian American athletes won five medals.

Third generation skeleton athlete Jim Shea won gold, teenager Sara Hughes shocked the figure skating world with her ladies gold, Kelly Clark (pictured below) and Ross Powers triumphed on their snowboards, Chris Witty, Casey FitzRandolph and charismatic Apolo Ohno joined Parra with gold medals in speed skating.

Riding a wave of cheering crowds and the electricity of a nation roaring its support, the team swept to a record 34 medals, second only to Germany's 36, the most in history by an American team at the Winter Games.

The USOC, under the skillful direction of Scott Blackmun and chief of sport performance Jim Scherr, directed $37 million (£23 million/€28 million) to support the team, including a special "Podium 2002" war chest of $18 million (£11.5 million/€13.5 million) in the final year ahead of the Games, to targeted athletes and teams with a chance to reach out and grab their dreams on the medal platform.


Blackmun, serving as the USOC's interim CEO after the departure of the controversial Norman P Blake in 2000, had brazenly predicted a haul of 20 medals in early 2001, and tied staff bonuses directly to the performance of the team in Salt Lake City. It was a gutsy call.

Sheer genius, backed by financial support, a world-class staff and committed national governing bodies, the kind of thing that now has Blackmun sitting in the CEO chair at the USOC as it enters a new era of success and restoration and Scherr the new commissioner of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference.

The USOC, which had stood by Salt Lake for a second time as America's candidate city after losing narrowly to Nagano in 1998, earned a 25 per cent share of a $101 million (£64 million/€76 million) surplus from the Games. The USOC had created OPUS (Olympic Properties of the United States) as the sponsorship and marketing centr for the Games from the start, and it was brilliant. The organisation, as well as the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee, endured the chaos of the tawdry 1998 Olympic bid scandal and massive IOC reforms to fashion a magnificent success story.


OPUS, formed by the USOC in advance of the 1998 Nagano Games, generated $874 million (£554 million/€660 million)against the Games' budget of some $1.390 billion (£881 million/€1.05 billion), and USOC-driven negotiations produced a fee of some $545 million (£346 million/€412 million) from NBC Sports.

The Salt Lake City Games became the most successful Winter Games in history, with 1,525 million tickets sold, 8,730 media accredited, 13.1 billion television viewing hours in 160 countries, 77 participating nations, 2,399 athletes and 187 million American television viewers.

Ten years later, the Salt Lake Games remain a refreshing memory for millions who watched and enjoyed the American dream, achieved by 211 athletes and their families from cities, towns and hamlets across the nation.

An Olympic Winter Games that once seemed on the verge of scorn and ridicule in 1998 now enjoys the warm glow of history and praise.


Mike Moran was the chief spokesman for the United States Olympic Committee for a quarter century, through 13 Games, from Lake Placid to Salt Lake City. He joined the USOC in 1978 as it left New York City for Colorado Springs. He was the Senior Communications Counselor for NYC2012, New York City's Olympic bid group from 2003-2005 and is now a media consultant