SALT LAKE CITY – One is a soldier, taking time off to ski and shoot for gold. Another was Ohio Firefighter of the Year in 1999, now ready to slide headfirst down an ice chute at 80 mph. A third was in New York when the World Trade Center was attacked.

Biathlete Kristina Sabasteanski, skeleton racer Lea Ann Parsley, and figure skater Todd Eldredge all have links to the events of Sept. 11 and the patriotic outpouring that followed.

On Friday night, before 3 billion viewers worldwide, they and five U.S. Olympic teammates will help carry the torn and tattered flag from ground zero into the opening ceremony of the Winter Games.

Sabasteanski, from Standish, Maine, is a member of the Army’s WCAP program, which helps world-class athletes in the military continue their training.

“When I heard, I was speechless. It is a huge thrill,” Sabasteanski said. “As a member of the military, everyone calls us heroes. But those people in New York and overseas serving our country, are the real heroes.

“We are merely representing those who died and all those people fighting the war against terror.”

Mark Grimmette, a three-time Olympian in luge who also was picked for the honor guard, said, “It’s pretty special for me to do this. It’s very emotional. To be representing all the athletes by carrying that flag will be a very special moment.”

Other athletes chosen by their teammates were ice hockey gold medalist Angela Ruggiero, curler Stacy Liapis, speedskater Derek Parra, and snowboarder Chris Klug, who is back at the games after a liver transplant.

They will carry the flag, the only one flying at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, in a special procession. It will enter the stadium before the parade of athletes and be held on the field while the national anthem is played, the U.S. Olympic Committee said Thursday.

But plans to raise the flag, which was buried in the rubble of ground zero for three days, while “The Star-Spangled Banner” is played were scrapped Thursday. Port Authority police Officers Tony Scannella and Frank Accardi, who brought the flag to Salt Lake City, went to Rice-Eccles Stadium and afterward Salt Lake organizers said the delicate flag could not take the stress of flying on the pole.

The USOC also said that its official flag for the ceremony would now be the one carried into the stadium by short-track speedskater Amy Peterson at the head of the U.S. team.

The procession was arranged in a compromise with the International Olympic Committee, which originally turned down a USOC proposal to carry the flag into the ceremony.

Parsley won firefighter of the year honors for her work in Granville, Ohio. She was sixth in the 2000-01 skeleton World Cup season standings.

Eldredge, from Lake Angelus, Mich., a five-time national champion, was in New York on Sept. 11 and had to drive back to Michigan when airlines were grounded.