History
The 2002 Salt Lake Torch Relay: America's Flame After September 11
Sixty-five days and 46 states in the winter after the attacks
July 18, 2026Updated September 29, 20265 min read
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A Ferry in the Dark
Two days before Christmas 2001, the Olympic flame boarded a ferry in New York Harbor. On deck were widows and children of September 11 victims, along with firefighters and police officers who had spent that autumn digging through the rubble. As the boat circled the Statue of Liberty and passed the floodlights over Ground Zero, the torchbearers and their families sang God Bless America, then kept a full minute of silence.
When the ferry docked, Mary Geraghty and her 14-year-old son Connor came off first, holding the torch together. They carried it for Ed Geraghty, husband and father, one of the first firefighters to reach the burning towers.
On paper, the 2002 relay delivered a flame from Greece to the Winter Games in Salt Lake City. It also gave a grieving country 65 days of standing on the curb in the cold to cheer for something.
It Began in Atlanta
The flame left Athens on December 3, 2001, and landed in Atlanta on December 4. Atlanta was chosen on purpose: it was the last American city to hold the Olympic flame, at the Centennial Games of 1996.
At Centennial Olympic Park, the first torch on American soil was lit by Muhammad Ali, the same man who had lit Atlanta's cauldron in 1996 with a trembling hand. Ali passed the fire to figure skater Peggy Fleming, the 1968 gold medalist, who ran the first leg alongside her coach Robert Paul, himself a 1960 figure skating gold medalist. The relay was built as a direct heir to the 84-day journey of 1996.
13,500 Miles
From December 4, 2001 to February 8, 2002, the flame covered 13,500 miles and passed through 46 of the 50 states, carried by 12,012 torchbearers. Each torch had the Games motto engraved on its handle: Light the Fire Within.
The Salt Lake Organizing Committee reserved 100 torchbearer slots specifically for heroes of September 11: rescuers, survivors, family members of the fallen. On December 22, President George W. Bush welcomed the relay to the White House lawn and honored torchbearers like Liz Howell, whose husband Brady was killed at the Pentagon.
The next day in New York, after the harbor ferry, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani ran the final city leg across the ice at Rockefeller Center, the rink ringed by 3,000 flickering candles, one for each victim of the attacks.
The Flag and the Miracle
The relay ended at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City on February 8, 2002, and the opening ceremony matched the road. An honor guard of American athletes, escorted by officers of the NYPD, the FDNY, and the Port Authority Police, brought a torn American flag recovered from the World Trade Center wreckage into the stadium while the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang the national anthem. A stadium of 50,000 people went almost completely quiet.
For the lighting, the organizers chose a team instead of one famous athlete: the 1980 US Olympic hockey players, the Miracle on Ice team from Lake Placid. Captain Mike Eruzione took the flame from skier Picabo Street and hockey star Cammi Granato, then waved his old teammates out of the shadows, and they lit the cauldron together, middle-aged men who had once given the country a reason to believe it could win. I think of that night whenever someone asks why the flame is never allowed to go out.
What 2002 Proves About 2028
In 2002 the same fire honored a firefighter's son on a ferry, a widow on the White House lawn and a hockey team in a stadium, and along the way it belonged to whoever stood on the sidewalk to watch it pass.
In 2028 the flame comes home to Los Angeles, and it will begin in Atlanta once again, LA28 confirmed in September 2026, before reaching all 50 states. Some of the runners on that route will be carrying a loss, the way the 2002 torchbearers did. If you know someone who has earned that mile, nominate them.