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The Opening Ceremonies at the 2002 Winter Olympics will celebrate the diversity of the participating nations and will share the cultural heritage of the host, Salt Lake City, with the rest of the world. And while these celebrations are always an exciting and beautiful demonstration of the host country’s enthusiasm and creativity, they also rest on tradition.

One of the Opening Ceremony traditions is the Parade of Nations. Athletes and officials from all the participating countries proudly march into the Olympic stadium. Each nation has selected one of their athletes to carry their flag in the Parade. As a mark of respect for the home of the original Olympics, the Greek flag and team always lead the parade. The other national flags and teams follow in alphabetical order.

There is a little catch though. The alphabetical order is based on the language of the host country. So for instance if the Olympic Games were hosted in France where the “United States” is translated into the “États-Unis”, the US flag and team would enter the stadium much earlier (in the E group) than when the games are hosted in the U.S (in the U group).

This time however, the U.S. flag and athlete contingent won’t be in with the U group either. By tradition, the host country is always the last in the parade.

As host country, the national flag of the United States will be seen at every Olympic event. But it will not be the only one. The familiar Olympic flag with five rings, each a different color-blue, black, red, yellow and green, will also be visible everywhere. It will be flown at the main site for the entire length of the games, at the Olympic Village and at each Olympic event. At the closing ceremonies the Olympic Flag will be passed on to the Mayor of Turin, Italy, where the next Olympic Winter Games will be held in 2006.

There is one more flag that will fly at each of the Olympic events and that is the flag of the United Nations. This is a relatively new tradition that started in 1993. In ancient Greece an Olympic Truce was pledged for the duration of the Olympic Games. To restore this tradition, the General Assembly of the United Nations encourages all nations to observe an Olympic Truce starting one week before the opening of the Olympic Games and lasting until one week after they are closed.

Both the United Nations and the Olympic Movement strive for peace and work to increase understanding among all nationalities. It is as a symbol of these efforts that both the Olympic and United Nations flags are flown at each Olympic event.

If you would like to read more about the Olympics, just enter “Olympics” in the search box on this page and select one or all of the results to learn more.