The moment tonight when the tattered American flag recovered from the rubble of the World Trade Center enters Rice-Eccles stadium may be the most powerful in the entire opening ceremonies, Mitt Romney said Thursday.
Even the white sheet that was used in place of the actual ground zero flag during Wednesday's dress rehearsal was enough to elicit an emotional response from the mostly local audience.
"I was still choked with emotion," the Salt Lake Organizing Committee president said. "As it was brought in, the cheers were deafening."
Romney said he expects a similar response from the international audience that will fill the stadium or tune in to the two-hour-plus extravaganza that will mark the beginning of the 2002 Winter Games.
"I can't help but believe the entire world will respond as I did," he said. "They will recognize that the flag is a tribute not only to Americans but to citizens from 80 nations who were lost in that tragic event.
Even before an appearance of the flag was included in the opening ceremonies program, some of the foreign press had labeled the Salt Lake Games as already overbearingly pro-American.
It's an image the U.S. Olympic Committee tried to downplay during a press conference Thursday.
Lloyd Ward, USOC chief executive officer, called on Americans watching the Games to "take pride in who you are, express it loud and clear but respect and value those around you and understand and appreciate those differences."
One of the athletes who will carry the ground zero flag, luger Mark Grimmette, said to him, it "doesn't only represent the United States. It represents all of the victims who were at the World Trade Center who died that day."
SLOC's creative director, Scott Givens, said the flag will be brought in at the beginning, after the introduction of President Bush, who is expected to be seated next to Romney and IOC President Jacques Rogge in the VIP box.
The flag will then be displayed to the stadium audience but is too delicate to be raised up a flagpole as it was during the World Series. Instead, Givens said another American flag will be hoisted. Just how is still a secret.
Carrying the 104-member team's placard will be Liz Howell, a Utah native whose husband, Brady, was killed Sept. 11 at the Pentagon. Liz Howell also carried the Olympic torch up the South Lawn of the White House Dec. 22. She handed the flame to Bush.
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