Watching with millions as Americans jammed the streets and grounds near the White House in an incredible outpouring of emotion and celebration in the hours after the news of the death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan broke, I was moved.

As the scene shifted to Times Square and Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan and the thousands gathered there, including relatives of the 3,000 victims, and firefighters and first responders who were there on September 11, 2001, I was reminded of the raw emotions and a miscalculation of the mood of the nation by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in the 48 hours before the Opening Ceremony of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City

On February 8, 2002, three billion people around the world watched as a tattered American flag retrieved from the rubble of the World Trade Centre was carried into the Olympic Games Opening ceremony at Rice-Eccles Stadium by eight United States athletes and three New York City Port Authority police officers ahead of the 211-member United States Olympic team and delegation

The threadbare flag was borne to the base of the stage where the President of the United States, the President of the IOC, and the President of the Salt Lake Olympic Organising Committee awaited.

As the National Anthem of the United States, the host nation, was played, a new, and whole flag was raised, but the statement had been made, the reflection of a nation answered superbly. How that flag got there and how the scene unfolded in the first place is a tale worth telling even now, as Americans look back on the attack and history. Sometime in October, 2001, maybe a month after the attacks on New York, the Pentagon and a thwarted attempt in Pennsylvania, there was a meeting staged by the United States Olympic Committee where the subject was first raised about creating some event around the Games in Salt Lake City on the world's largest stage to honour the memory of the fallen, and to remember the largest attack in history against America on our soil.

Greg Harney, my colleague who then was the USOC's managing director of International Games Preparation, opened the subject and Rob Stull, a two-time Olympic modern pentathlete and fencer, came up with the suggestion that the USOC might attempt to find and bring the World Trade Centre flag to Salt Lake City. The flag, recovered at Ground Zero, was in the hands of the Port Authority and was being displayed at the World Series in New York - and later at the Super Bowl and 37 memorials for Port Authority officers killed in the attacks.

Harney, a veteran of every Olympics since 1984 and close to Olympic athletes, knew who to call right away. That call went to USOC Government Relations Director Steve Bull in Washington, a ten-year staffer who once had been a special assistant to President Richard Nixon and a man who knew which buttons to push.

Bull called the Port Authority offices in New York and ultimately was connected with Sergeant Tony Scanella, who was in charge of the flag and its appearances. Bull told Scanella that the USOC and US athletes wanted him to bring the revered flag to Salt Lake City for a role to be determined, and that all expenses would be covered. As the weeks passed Scanella got the approval to bring the flag to the Games, and that's when things really became complicated.

During those times, Harney, Bull and senior USOC staffers like me would often set in motion programmes and initiatives designed to assist Olympic athletes and promote the mission of the USOC without full disclosure or approval from the volunteer leadership, which tended to be a bureaucratic minefield where good intentions could be derailed by politics. When Harney presented the full programme we had fashioned to the IOC on site in Salt Lake during the week ahead of the Opening Ceremony, it set off a major controversy.

Greg had asked me what I felt earlier about the idea of having the flag carried into the ceremonies by five athletes and one official, who happened to be me, at the rear of our delegation as it entered the stadium last as the host nation's team. Greg had suggested that I think about being involved because I was retiring after the Games and ending my association that began with the 1980 Games in Lake Placid.

I was thrilled with the overall plan and how Americans would approve, but when Harney presented the idea to the IOC that week, it was rejected as being "too political." The IOC cited rules that prohibited athletes from political displays during the march of the nations and that it would be inappropriate, but that the flag could be raised at the Ceremony.

"Every country in the IOC has issues," said American IOC member and Olympic rowing medalist Anita DeFrantz. "As Americans, we have to understand it's a world event and also that we are a guest, even though we are the host nation. This way, with the flag being raised, we serve both goals."

On February 5, three days before the Opening, the USOC leadership, President Sandy Baldwin and chief executive Lloyd Ward, quickly agreed, as did Salt Lake Organising Committee President Mitt Romney, the three wanting no collision with the IOC on the eve of the Games. I told Bull and Harney at the time that it would take just hours before a national firestorm would erupt over the decision, led by the media, which was attuned to the national mood.

The flag arrived the next day at the Salt Lake airport. The IOC ruling was an historical miscalculation, and history was made in the next 24 hours, particularly after an enraged Scanella got fellow Port Authority officer Curt Kellinger, who had also journeyed to the Games with the flag, to call conservative radio talk show host Sean Hannity and tell him about the rejection of the original idea. Hannity spoke on-line with Kellinger, and thousands of Hannity's listeners were outraged.

They began to call IOC headquarters in Lausanne - Hannity helpfully supplied the number - and internet columnist Matt Drudge picked up the story and posted it. I was a guest on MSNBC with host Alan Keyes on the issue, and callers were angry and outraged. "Whose sensibilities are they trying to protect? The terrorists?" said Steven Push of the Families of September 11 organisation.

The story exploded rapidly among the worldwide media already on site at the Games, and after a late evening emergency meeting called by the IOC, we were informed that we could carry the flag with us into the Ceremonies. IOC President Jacques Rogge emerged from the meeting with Baldwin and other USOC officials to tell the world, "We are in the United States of America, we are guests of the United States of America and the ceremony for the flag will be an homage to the flag of the United States of America. It is no departure from what is normally the Olympic programme. We see absolutely no problem. On the contrary, we understand the deep emotion of the American public, but also other nations that have suffered casualties."


We met and picked eight athletes to carry the tattered, 12-by-8-foot flag ahead of our delegation. I withdrew for obvious reasons, it would have seemed like a stunt to be part of the march by then after the media storm. Selected to carry the flag were Kristina Sabasteanski, a biathlete in the US Army; Lea Ann Parsley, a skeleton athlete and firefighter in Ohio; Stacy Liapis, a curler whose boyfriend was a firefighter; Todd Eldredge, a three-time Olympian in figure skating; Angela Ruggiero, a hockey player and close friend of teammate Kathleen Kauth, who lost her father in the World Trade Centre attacks; Mark Grimmette, a three-time Olympian in luge; Chris Klug, a snowboarder with a liver transplant; and Derek Parra, a speed skater.

The eight athletes were accompanied by three Port Authority policemen - Scanella, Officer Frank Accardi and Kellinger. An honour guard of NYPD officers and NYC firefighters was also on hand. When the flag was borne by the athletes and New York officers into the stadium, it was one of the most emotional moments in our nation's history, and Americans wept. And we had prevailed.

From February, 2003 through July 8, 2005, I worked as the senior communications counselor for NYC2012, the group leading New York City's bid for the 2012 Games. Our offices were located at One Liberty Plaza in Lower Manhattan, and from my window on the 34th floor in my space, I could look directly down to Ground Zero and the site where the Twin Towers had stood. Over time, the area slowly returned to life, stores reopened, buildings were demolished and some new construction began. I would occasionally grab a beer at one of several pubs where firefighters gathered after their shifts. Everywhere were hundreds of pictures of missing victims posted on walls with notes and letters that were filled with grief.

New York lost in the IOC vote in 2005 on a hot July 7 day in Singapore, and London got the Games. The next morning, 56 people were killed in terrorist bombings in London. The next day, I took the #4 subway downtown to my offices to clean out my few things and go home to Colorado. My last look out my office window was not again below to Ground Zero, but outward to the nearby water and to the Statue of Liberty. I remembered that last night around 2am, turned off the television, and slept.

Mike Moran was the chief spokesman for the United States Olympic Committee for a quarter century, through thirteen Games, from Lake Placid to Salt Lake City. He joined the USOC in 1978 as it left New York City for Colorado Springs. He was the Senior Communications Counselor for NYC2012, New York City's Olympic bid group from 2003-2005 and is now a media consultant