| Salt Lake City |
 |
 |
| GER |
12 |
16 |
7 |
35 |
 |
| USA |
10 |
13 |
11 |
34 |
|
| NOR |
11 |
7 |
6 |
24 |
|
| CAN |
6 |
3 |
8 |
17 |
|
| RUS |
6 |
6 |
4 |
16 |
|
| AUT |
2 |
4 |
10 |
16 |
|
| ITA |
4 |
4 |
4 |
12 |
|
| FRA |
4 |
5 |
2 |
11 |
|
| SUI |
3 |
2 |
6 |
11 |
|
| NED |
3 |
5 |
0 |
8 |
|
|
|
|
Focus on athletes, start to finish
By Scott Taylor
Deseret News sports editor
At the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games, the Olympic athletes came first — and last.
In a first-ever departure from International Olympic Committee protocol that required special IOC approval, the Olympians arrived early to Friday night's opening ceremonies at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
In previous opening ceremonies, the Parade of Nations has come late, well after the artistic programs and just prior to the lighting of the caldron.
Decked in winter gear featuring colors and designs representative of their own countries, the Olympians marched into the stadium for their early entrance, able then to enjoy the entire program — the makeshift Ice-Capades-turned-2002-opening-ceremonies.
Actually, the athletes played important roles besides just the formal entrance. Eight members of the United States Olympic team joined representatives of the New York Port Authority and New York Fire Department to carefully carry in the U.S. flag that survived the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks and was later flown at "ground zero."
Also part of the program, another five international Olympians — representing the five continents symbolized in the five Olympic rings — exchanged gifts with five leaders from Native American tribes of Utah in a welcome ceremony.
The Parade of Nations featured more than 2,500 athletes from 77 national Olympic committees from A to Y — Andorra to Yugoslavia. According to tradition, Greece entered first, with other countries' delegations following in alphabetical order.
Also according to tradition, the United States — as the host nation — entered last, with the 236-member U.S. delegation making for nearly a tenth of the entire procession of Olympians. The U.S. contingent was nearly 70 people more than Germany, the next largest 2002 team. And the Americans dwarfed the single-digit delegations, such as India, South Africa, Nepal and Kenya.
As the athletes paraded into and around the stadium, the delegations were then sent to sit in the south stands beneath the caldron. They formed a kaleidoscope of colors in their national uniforms — and the French Olympians even started "the wave" circulating the stadium that involved the crowd, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Utah Symphony.
Five-time Olympic speedskater Amy Peterson carried the U.S. flag before the American delegation. And U.S. skeleton slider Jim Shea Jr. pronounced the Olympic oath as the athletes' representative — a task duplicating that of his late grandfather, Jack Shea, the gold-medalist speedskater who repeated the oath at the start of the 1932 Lake Placid Games.
U.S. Olympians past and present played a key role in bringing the torch into stadium and up to the flame. The stadium torchbearers then shared the torch as pairs — figure skaters Dick Button and Dorothy Hamil, figure skaters Peggy Fleming and Scott Hamilton, alpine skiers Phil Mahre and Bill Johnson, speedskaters Bonnie Blair and Dan Jansen, Shea and his father Jim Shea Sr. (a non-medalist Olympian from the 1950s who represented his father, Jack Shea) and alpine skier Picabo Street and women's hockey team captain Cammi Granato.
The latter two took the Olympic flame to Mike Eruzione, captain of the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" U.S. men's hockey team. In a gesture mimicking that of asking his teammates to make a then-unprecedented move to join him on the 1980 medal stand, Eruzione motioned teammates — all wearing 1980 USA Hockey jerseys — to join him in lighting the caldron.
And the opening ceremonies that started with the athletes ended focusing on the athletes.
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February 9, 2002
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