‘It was just so fun’: 2002 Olympic torchbearer recalls patriotic experience
Jul 25, 2024, 12:17 PM | Updated: 12:27 pm
SALT LAKE CITY – In 2002, my grandma, Kathleen Barnes Walker, was a torchbearer for the Salt Lake City Olympics.
I recently had the chance to sit down with her to talk about her experience.
“I had all these fears, like, ‘What if I light my hair on fire with the torch? Or what if I fall into a manhole? Or what if my pants fall off because the suits were really big?'” she said.
More: Exclusive news, stories, and highlights from the Paris Olympics on KSL TV and KSL Sports.
My grandfather, Alan Barnes, had served on the Interfaith Council for the Salt Lake Olympics – he unexpectedly died a year before the opening ceremony. My grandmother received a letter inviting her to run the Olympic torch in his honor.
“I was just terrified,” she said. “My children were all laughing at me, saying, ‘Mother, you have never run anything. What are you going to do?’ ‘I don’t know, I think I’m going to need heavenly help.'”
Preparation to be a torchbearer
So, she started training.
“I got on my treadmill with soup cans,” she said. “I would hold a soup can and I would run, and then I would change hands, because I’m thinking, ‘Maybe they make you change hands.’ I mean, I didn’t know anything about what you do.”
When the day finally came – Feb. 8, 2002 – she arrived at her assigned stretch on Redwood Road.
“They dip the torch and then light your torch, and then you take your torch and you run your next little lap,” she said. “People were cheering; people snapping pictures. You were just floating. It was one of those moments in time that you just wanted to freeze.”
She even pinned on her outfit an Olympic pin for every grandchild, so afterwards we could have a pin that she wore when she ran the torch.
“It was just so fun,” she said.
A view from the sidelines
My family watched from the sidelines. Fortunately, there was no tripping, no hair catching fire, and no pants falling down.
“I was glad I had prepared,” my grandma said.
She fondly recalled the feeling of togetherness, particularly during the opening ceremony when a torn American flag recovered from the 9/11 wreckage was brought into the stadium.
“People were just silent,” she said. “It was just surreal. It was one of those unifying moments that we long for now in our country. Hopefully, if we get the Olympics again, it will bring some of that peace and that patriotism and the things that we are missing in this society.”
At 85, she’s hoping to still be around when the Olympics return to Salt Lake in 2034.
I asked her if she would run the torch again if she was invited to.
Her response?
“I would walk it. I basically walked it then because I didn’t want it to end.”