Flap Over Ground Zero Flag

Olympic leaders said they were trying to properly honor the victims of the Sept. 11 terror attack when they agreed to hoist a flag recovered from the rubble of the World Trade Center during Friday’s opening ceremony for the Salt Lake City Winter Games.

Instead, they spent Tuesday answering charges that an Olympic subcommittee was insensitive by turning down an earlier proposal to carry the oversized flag into the stadium during the traditional parade of nations because it did not follow protocol.

Although the proposal never came before the International Olympic Committee’s Executive Board, it provided a quick lesson for the IOC on the extraordinary sensitivities in this country--after Sept. 11--and to the potent symbolism imbued in the flag, recovered from Ground Zero, covered in ash, and missing 12 stars.

Salt Lake Organizing Committee President Mitt Romney was among those displeased with the subcommittee’s decision. In a statement, he said the SLOC “supported the request by the USOC to have the U.S. team carry the flag recovered from Ground Zero in the opening ceremony of the 2002 Games. We respectfully disagree with the IOC.”

The controversy began over the weekend when SLOC delegates, including Romney, appeared before the IOC’s coordination subcommittee and requested a change in the opening night ceremonies: The U.S. team would enter in the traditional way--behind an athlete carrying a normal-sized flag--followed by five veteran Olympic athletes and a USOC official carrying the oversized flag.

“We did this with typical American innocence, saying, ‘Isn’t this a great idea?’” said USOC President Sandra Baldwin.

The subcommittee, however, said that the proposal was not in line with protocol. In addition, concerns were expressed about a precedent--that if the U.S. flag was carried at the Salt Lake Games, other nations might want a display of their own, commemorating tragedies in their respective national stories, at the forthcoming Olympics in Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008.

So a compromise was struck. The oversized flag, which flew at Yankee Stadium during last year’s World Series and was featured Sunday during the national anthem at the Super Bowl, would be raised during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” on Friday and would serve throughout the Games as the flag of the host nation. Typically, the host nation flag is an ordinary size.

IOC officials were caught off guard by the controversy.

Director General Francois Carrard said the IOC believed it had shown “the utmost mark of respect,” and added of plans to hoist the flag, “We were proud to agree.”

Said R. Kevan Gosper of Australia, an IOC vice president, “We generally believed that when this was discussed this was the highest tribute we could pay.”

Instead, however, they had to answer charges that they were insensitive--and that the IOC’s policy-making Executive Board had turned down the proposal.

In fact, the proposal was never put to the IOC Executive Board, Gosper said.

“If another proposal comes forward, we will listen,” he said. “No one’s hiding behind protocol here. We thought we were doing the right thing.”

Baldwin said, “I do understand their position.” But she also said, “They also need to understand America’s innocence.”