Winter Olympics
byTerry Brinkman

 

 

On July Twenty Sixth Salt Lake City will find out if they will hold the 2034 Winter Olympics.

The 2002 Winter Olympics were held by Salt Lake City - at the time I was working for Questar Gas and it was an honor to work on the Olympics.

When I worked the 2002 Winter Olympics, I worked at the Rice Eccles Stadium maintaining the Caldron. The Olympic Caldron was made of two layers of glass with water running between the layers of glass so the caldron flame would not break the glass. The water was heated so it would not freeze from the pump all the way up the caldron until it reached the flame. The flame was warm so it would not freeze near the flame. We needed to make sure the boiler kept running the pump would keep running and we would bleed out air and add water as needed. My shift was from Midnight until Eight AM seven days a week. We also needed to look-out for any funny business, we were under high security, this soon after the Trade Center bombing in New York on September 11.

Watching the Olympic Caldron Flame we were in a Tuff-Shed with a glass roof so we could look up and see the flame going without going outside Tuff-Shed. There were two of us working together we would take turns every fifteen minutes going outside to check the caldron. The Tuff-Shed was set up inside with a Gas-Log for heat and a television so all night we could watch reruns of the Winter Olympic sports taken during the day. There was a soda machine we could get pop from; left over meals that they had during the Winter Olympic opening ceremony, these were just stacked up near the soda machine and it was cold outside so the sandwiches were good for three or four days. They had fruit and Baby Ruth candy bars we ate all the Olympics long. We were able to walk right up to the flame, we usually did each hour just to check; there were people all night parking outside the fence to take photos of the Olympic Caldron Flame if I was up there checking the caldron I would wave to the photo takers. During the opening and closing ceremonies we would have cats (by cats I mean lookie-loos - curiosity killed the cat) trying to get in our Tuff-Shed to see what we were doing, when it was Stars or Kiss it was okay and it if was nobody we knew it was Kind of annoying.

Hope we get the 2034 Winter Olympics now being retired maybe I can volunteer? Well, we shall see.

  

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