2002 Winter Olympics - Highlights

Highlights

• The opening ceremonies included Grammy Award-winning artist LeAnn Rimes singing "Light the Fire Within," the official song of the 2002 Olympics.
• The Grammy Award-winning Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed the "Star-Spangled Banner", National Anthem of the United States, for the opening ceremonies.
• John Williams composed a five-minute work for orchestra and chorus, Call of the Champions, that served as the official theme of the 2002 Winter Olympics, his first for a Winter Olympiad. It was performed by the Utah Symphony Orchestra and featured the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Madeleine Choir School singing the official motto of the Olympic Games "Citius, Altius, Fortius" (Faster, Higher, Stronger). The premiere of the work at the opening ceremonies also corresponded with John Williams's 70th birthday. The work is featured on the CD American Journey, and also on the Choir's recording Spirit of America.
• There were also signs of the aftermath of September 11, 2001, being the first Olympics since then. They included the flag that flew at Ground Zero, NYPD officer Daniel Rodriguez singing "God Bless America", and honor guards of NYPD and FDNY members.
• Along with the flag that flew at the World Trade Center site, the Challenger flag was also carried into the stadium.
• The opening segment of the opening ceremony celebrated all previous hosts of the Olympic Winter Games.
• The Olympic Flame was lit by the members of the Gold Medal-winning US Hockey Team of the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, NY, which was the previous time the Winter Olympics were in the US. (See picture at right)
• These Olympics marked the first time a United States president opened an Olympic Winter Games held in the United States, although previous Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Richard Nixon had opened the 1932 Winter Olympics and the 1960 Winter Olympics in their roles as Governor of New York and Vice President of the United States, respectively.
• These were the first Games to be held under IOC president Jacques Rogge.
• Competition highlights included biathlete Ole Einar Bjørndalen of Norway, winning gold in all four men's events (10 k, 12.5 k, 20 k, 4 x 7.5 relay), Nordic combined athlete Samppa Lajunen of Finland winning three gold medals, Simon Ammann of Switzerland taking the double in ski jumping. In alpine skiing, Janica Kostelić won three golds and a silver (the first Winter Olympic medals ever for an athlete from Croatia and the first three-gold performance by a female), while Kjetil André Aamodt of Norway earned his second and third career golds, setting up both athletes to beat the sport's record with their fourth golds earned at the next Winter Olympics near Turin (Aamodt also set the overall medal record in the sport with 8).
• Skeleton returned as a medal sport in the 2002 Games for the first time since 1948.
• Ireland reached its best ever position and came close to winning its first winter medal when Clifton Wrottesley (Clifton Hugh Lancelot de Verdon Wrottesley, 6th Baron Wrottesley) finished fourth in the men's skeleton event.
• The Women's Bobsled Event had its debut at the 2002 Games after several years of World Cup competition.
• A feature of these Games was the emergence of the extreme sports, such as snowboarding, moguls and aerials, which appeared in previous Olympic Winter Games but have captured greater public attention in recent years.
• The United States completed a remarkable sweep of the podium in men's halfpipe snowboarding, with Americans Ross Powers, Danny Kass, and Jarret Thomas all winning medals.
• American Sarah Hughes won the gold medal in figure skating. American and heavy favorite Michelle Kwan fell during her long program and received the bronze medal.
• China won its first and second Winter Olympic gold medals, both by women's short-track speed skater Yang Yang (A).
• One of the most memorable stories of the event occurred at the men's short track. Australian skater Steven Bradbury, a competitor who had won a bronze in 1994 as part of a relay team but well off the pace of the medal favourites, cruised off the pace in his semifinal only to see three of his competitors crash into each other, allowing him to finish second and go through to the final. Bradbury was again well off the pace, but lightning struck again and all four other competitors crashed out in the final turn, leaving a jubilant Bradbury to take the most unlikely of gold medals, the first for Australia—or any other country of the Southern Hemisphere—in the Olympic Winter Games.
• Australia winning their second gold medal, courtesy of Alisa Camplin in Women's Aerials, the first ever Winter Games gold won by a woman from the Southern Hemisphere.
• The Canadian men's ice hockey team defeated the American team 5–2 to claim the gold medal, ending 50 years without the hockey gold. The Canadian women's team also defeated the American team 3–2 after losing to them at the 1998 Winter Olympic Games in Nagano.
• The closing ceremonies marked the final live performance of KISS with its lineup of Stanley/Simmons/Frehley/Singer. They performed "Rock and Roll All Nite". Other artists performing at the 2002 ceremonies were Creed, Sting, Yo Yo Ma, R. Kelly, Christina Aguilera, Dianne Reeves, Harry Connick Jr., Dorothy Hamill, Dave Matthews Band, 'N Sync, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Dixie Chicks, Josh Groban, Charlotte Church, Bon Jovi, Mormon Tabernacle Choir and, during the presentation of Turin, Irene Grandi and Elisa.
• There was a Canadian dollar underneath the ice in support of the Canadian men's team, supposedly placed there at the request of Wayne Gretzky, who knew the man responsible for ice upkeep.
• Team Belarus's Vladimir Kopat scored a game winning goal from center ice against Team Sweden in the quarter finals, getting Belarus to their best place in international hockey so far.
• The games were formally closed by International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge departing from former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch's tradition of declaring each games "best ever". Rogge's began a tradition of assigning each games their own identity in his comments calling the 2002 Salt Lake Games "flawless"