Wide World of Sports is running a series on politics at the Olympics to mark the Beijing Winter Games. This article looks back on the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, rattled by a bribery scandal and the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Adrian Costa remembers the chill that hit him when he witnessed for the first time at the 2002 Winter Olympics “a mirror on the end of a pole”.
The now-retired Australian freestyle skier was in Salt Lake City for his fourth and final Olympic Games, where a bizarre device was being used to monitor for explosives under cars.
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The level of security in place for the Utah-based Olympics was “next level”, Costa says, as the world battled to regain calm in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The attacks perpetrated by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Somerset County in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001, killed almost 3000 people, injured thousands more and shook the 2002 Olympics with fear.
Costa has unnerving memories of the impact 9/11 had on Salt Lake City Games security.
“They always had high security at the Olympics, but this was next level. There was the military, there was all this crazy stuff, all vehicles had to be checked going in and out of the village,” Costa recalls in an interview with Wide World of Sports.
“The thing that struck me most was they were doing undercar checks. You know where they get a mirror on the end of a pole and they run it under the car? I had never seen it before. That was a little confronting. They check for devices under the car. You know when you take your car to the servo and there’s a pit underneath? They had something that could get underneath to check for devices.
“It’s a bit confronting the first time you see it. You sort of think, ‘This is pretty serious. What if for some reason something is actually under the car?'”
Overheard were Black Hawk helicopters, on a desert runway were F-16s and on rooftops were sharpshooters.
There were also about five armed military or police personnel per athlete.
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Costa said the high-level security extended to the Olympic villages, including the ‘satellite’ set-up at which he and other athletes competing in snow-based sports resided.
“It was like an airport to get into the village,” Costa says.
“You do a full check where they check your bag. You know when you go through the airport and they put your stuff through a scanner? All Olympic athlete villages have that, but this was next level at Salt Lake.”
Costa felt trepidation before and during the Salt Lake City Olympics despite, by his own admission, his “insular” mindset.
“Athletes live a very selfish existence,” he says with a laugh.
He remembers the village check-in being a hassle.
“What you’re thinking is, ‘This is a nuisance. I need to get to my physio appointment’.”
Costa remembers the tension he felt on his first overseas trip after the September 11 attacks.
“Airport security was crazy. I can remember going through Denver Airport through those months and security being an hour’s wait,” Costa says.
“It’s probably never got back to where it was prior to that in terms of airport security.
“And you certainly thought twice about getting on a plane straight after 9/11.”
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As Salt Lake City organisers huddled in the office of chief operating officer Fraser Bullock and watched on in horror as a second plane careered into the Twin Towers, the buildings crumbling and burning violently, the Games plunged into doubt.
“We knew there would be people questioning whether these Games could be held safely or not,” Bullock told Olympic-inspired publication Around the Rings last year.
“But we all were resolute that the Games should go on.”
Costa says “a genuine question” hung over the Olympics.
“There was a period of time where the Games were in jeopardy,” Costa says.
“When the attacks happened, no one knew what the hell was going on.
“A lot of air travel got shut down for about a week or so.
“There was definitely doubt around the Salt Lake City Games for a couple of weeks.”
The September 11 tragedy wasn’t the only political episode that rocked the Salt Lake City Olympics.
In 1999, six International Olympic Committee members were sacked after being found guilty of accepting $1 million in cash, gifts and favours from Salt Lake City Games officials, who had secured hosting rights through bribery.
The Games were also facing a $400 million shortfall.
The two top bosses of the Salt Lake City Games organising committee, Tom Welch and Dave Johnson, lost their jobs, and businessman Mitt Romney took over and saved the Olympics.
“It’s quite shocking and unacceptable,” Costa says of the bribery saga.
“We never thought that was occurring. The IOC was always seen to be highly ethical and in support of all the great things they do … So that was shocking and unacceptable, and I suspect it’s something that hasn’t continued since.
“There was probably a bit of a legacy where things were done a certain way, and then they saw the ills of it and fixed it up.”
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“Salt Lake City is a funny little place,” Costa says.
“It’s not necessarily a place you would associate with a major international event.
“But beautiful venues, good weather.
“I personally had a shocking performance,” Costa, who didn’t advance beyond moguls qualifying, says with a laugh.
“But the Games went well. I think it was a good result for the area and city.
“Salt Lake City is a pretty big university town. It’s a Mormon town, too. So, the population – it’s a slightly different society compared to other parts of the world.
“The Americans love the Games, there’s a lot of buzz around (and) there’s a lot of support, particularly for America.”
The 2002 Olympics was a chance for America to unify and heal after the September 11 devastation.
“That was very much the sentiment at the Salt Lake Games,” Costa says.
“This crime had been committed against America and they were very big on showing they had the resilience to get on with it and not let it affect them.
“Salt Lake was a lot about that.”
Perhaps the most poignant moment of the Games came in the opening ceremony, when an honour guard of USA athletes, police officers and firefighters carried the American flag into Rice-Eccles Stadium.
But this wasn’t any USA flag.
This was dirty, tattered, gaping with rips and missing 12 stars.
It had been recovered from the smouldering wreckage of the World Trade Centre.
More than 55,000 people, president George W. Bush among them, watched on as the athletes, police officers and firefighters carried the flag into a silent and dimmed stadium.
When the first of two hijacked planes collided into the Twin Towers, there was anarchy.
When the flag discovered in the simmering rubble of the World Trade Center entered the 2002 Olympic opening ceremony, there was tranquility.
Reverence was being observed on a large scale possibly like never before.
The Utah Symphony and a Salt Lake City choir led the masses in the American national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner, and peace was found in tears.
Costa was the Australian flag-bearer for the opening ceremony, but his razor-sharp focus ahead of his Olympic competition had him unaware of the use of the recovered USA flag.
“You’re sort of in your own world a bit,” Costa says.
“In a lot of ways you’re in those opening ceremonies and you’re taking it all in, but you’re so focused on this one shot you’ve got that you’ve spent the last four years (working for) that you’re actually oblivious to a lot.
“It’s a sad admission, but it actually happens.”
Costa also admits that the 20 years that have passed since mustn’t help his recollection of the rousing opening ceremony.
He does remember the incredible feeling that washed over him when he emerged with the Australian flag in the stadium.
“I remember like it was yesterday walking into the stadium with the Australian flag and the immense pride associated with that occasion,” Costa says.
“It was an unbelievable experience that I will never forget.”
Politics and the Olympics have fought many more wars in Summer Games than in Winter Games.
But the Salt Lake City Olympics of 2002 were a tarnished, frightening and stirring Winter Games outlier.