Olympic flag bearers ready for special moment (News Feature)

By David Hein Feb 12, 2010, 1:40 GMT

Whistler, Canada - Besides winning a gold medal, the highlight of an athlete's career is usually entering the stadium for the parade of athletes at the opening ceremonies of an Olympics.

But for 82 individuals, the spectacular opening of the XXI Olympic winter Games Friday night will have an even greater meaning - as they lead their nations into Vancouver's BC Place as their respective homeland's flag bearers.

No athlete will feel the moment more than speed skater Clara Hughes, who has the honour of being flag bearer for the host nation and leading the 206-member strong Team Canada into the roar of 60,600 cheering fans.

Hughes will be participating in her fifth Olympic Games - including her third winter Olympics after twice competing in the summer Games and winning two bronze medals at Atlanta 1996 in cycling.

Hughes, 37, will be retiring after Vancouver and hopes to add to her three speed skating medals, which includes gold in the 5,000m.

But Hughes - one of only four athletes and the only Canadian to win medals in both the summer and winter Olympics - will forever have the memory of bearing the flag.

'When I am carrying the Canadian flag into BC Place on the 12th of February, I am representing each and every Canadian. When I am racing, I am no longer just myself. I am something bigger, faster, stronger and far more beautiful: I am Canada,' Hughes said on her personal website.

Hughes, however, is just one of the dozens of great stories about the flag bearers at the Vancouver Games.

Three-time overall World Cup luge champion Mark Grimmette will be out front of the 216-athlete U.S. team as one of three five-time Olympians on the North American team.

But it will be the second time Grimmette will be carrying a flag at an Olympic Games opening ceremony. He was one of the eight US athletes chosen to carry a tattered US flag pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center at the Salt Lake City Olympics - just five months after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

'The exposure for the sport of luge is great,' said the double luge competitor. 'I'm honoured to be representing our sport and this whole US team.'

One sport that needs little exposure in Canada is ice hockey. And a number of nations have chosen ice hockey players to lead their teams into the Vancouver Games.

The biggest name among the ice hockey flag bearers is legendary Czech forward Jaromir Jagr, who was one of the biggest stars in the North America-based National Hockey League and is also wildly popular in Canada. Jagr, 37, helped the Czechs to hockey gold in 1998 and bronze in Turin.

Among the other ice hockey players are Russian team captain Alexei Morozov, Finland's Ville Peltonen, Tommy Jakobsen of Norway and Oleg Antonenko of Belarus.

And two women will be making historical entrances into BC Place.

Seven-time Olympic speed skater Tomomi Okazaki, 38, will become the first woman ever to lead a Japanese team at a summer Olympics or winter Games.

And alpine skier Marjan Kalhor, 21, is not only Iran's first ever female flag bearer, but she is also the first Iranian woman in winter Olympics history.

These are just nine of the 82 individuals anxiously awaiting their special moment in the Olympic annals.