Angela Ruggiero ’02-’04, a defensemen on the Olympic team, helps carry a flag recovered from the World Trade Center site Friday.

For six Harvard athletes, Friday’s opening ceremonies for Salt Lake City’s 2002 Winter Olympics marked the beginning of their quest for Gold.

But before the usual fanfare of the opening ceremonies could begin, the Olympics paid tribute to the victims of Sept.11.

An honor guard of eight U.S. Olympic athletes, including Harvard hockey standout Angela Ruggiero ’02-’04, carried in the torn and tattered flag that flew from the World Trade Center on the day of the attacks. They were accompanied by New York City firefighters and police officers.

Ruggiero said she walked in honor of Donald Kauth, who worked on the 90th floor of the World Trade Center and was father of 2000-2001 Brown women’s hockey captain Kathleen Kauth.

“It was such an emotional experience to be a part of something this special,” Ruggiero said. “I can’t even describe the feeling. I was in shock just to touch the flag because it means so much to so many people.”

While the guard held the flag still in the spotlight, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.” A Black Hawk helicopter—part of a record $310 million Olympic security plan—hovered overhead.

Olympic officials had originally planned to raise the flag following the parade of athletes, but later decided it was too fragile to handle the weather conditions.

Following the anthem, President Bush and International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge silently departed, and darkness fell over the flag bearers.

Then the pageantry of the 2002 Winter Olympics finally began.

Of the six Olympic athletes with Harvard ties, two of them—Canadian women’s hockey player Tammy Lee Shewchuk ’00-’01 and U.S. women’s hockey player Julie Chu ’06—were entering their first Olympics. Both were overwhelmed by the country-by-county parade of athletes.

Shewchuk, who took a one-year leave from Harvard to try out for the 1998 Canadian Olympic Team, had to live for four years with the dissatisfaction of being one of the final cuts. But she continued to be a consistent contributor to the Canadian National Team in the years following the Olympics, and on Friday, she finally got her chance to march.

“I actually had a difficult time keeping my emotions in check walking into the stadium,” Shewchuk wrote in an e-mail. “Considering having missed out by so little last time, it meant the world to finally take the walk I have been waiting my whole life to take.”

Chu is one of four players on the U.S. Olympic women’s hockey team that has yet to start college. Because the U.S. was hosting, its athletes entered the stadium last. Chu said the wait seemed to take forever, but she felt a rush as she made the final turn and saw the crowd.

“To see the support and excitement of everybody in the stadium was unbelievable,” Chu said. “I remember thinking as I enter the stadium, ‘This is it. This is my dream. I’m finally an Olympian.’”

Three Harvard women’s hockey players—Ruggiero, Canada’s Jennifer Botterill ’02-’03 and the United States’ A.J. Mleczko ’97-’99—were making their second Olympic appearance.

Botterill, who won a silver medal with Team Canada in 1998 before coming to Harvard, said the Olympics might be even more special the second time around.

“The first time you’re there you’re just in awe,” Botterill said. “But this time the crowd was incredible, and the setup was beautiful. You know what to expect, and you can focus more on your performance.”

Short-track speed-skater Dan Weinstein ’03-’04, a member of the U.S. 5,000-meter relay team, is also a Nagano veteran on leave from Harvard.

Some two and a half hours after the ceremony started, Mike Eruzione and the rest of the 1980 gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team lighted the Olympic cauldron to cries of “USA! USA!” as the games officially began.

The television ratings for NBC’s broadcast of the opening ceremonies were the highest in the history of the Olympics, Winter or Summer, with a 25.5 national rating and a 42 share.

Nielsen Media Research reported that 72 million people watched at least part of the show. Friday’s rating was 57 percent higher than NBC had for Sydney’s opening ceremony, and 49 percent higher than CBS got for the last Winter Games.

—Material from the Associated Press was used in the compilation of this story.

—Staff writer David R. De Remer can be reached at remer@fas.harvard.edu.