Photography

Dean Rutz / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Ariana Kukors, 2012. Kukors will be competing at the 2012 London Olympic Games in the 200m Individual Medley.

The flag was an afterthought.

In 2000, reporter Ron Judd and myself were in Indianapolis covering the Olympic Swim Trials; part of our preparation for the Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. One swimmer in particular caught our attention: Megan Quann of Puyallup.

Quann burst on to the swimming scene that July catching everybody by surprise winning the women's 100m breaststroke. Her times throughout the trials were impressive. And I remember Ron going over the world's best times in that event that year, and saying "she could win."

In my mind, we needed to do something special. We couldn't just leave Indianapolis and fly to Australia, not seeing her again until Sydney. I went to her coach and asked if, the day following the trials, we could have a few moments with Megan to do a photograph. Grudgingly he agreed, although Megan was more enthusiastic than he.

Ron and I talked to no one back at the newspaper about this. We were flying by the seat of our pants with a hair-brained idea. We set out to create a poster previewing the Games, featuring Quann. We figured we'd see later if we could get editors to print it.

The idea occurred to me that we should find a flag and use it as a backdrop. As that idea percolated in my imagination, I thought perhaps we could float it across the water and have Megan swim across it.

But I didn't have a flag. Or anything else I needed for that matter.

That night sportswriter Elliott Almond and I went looking for a flag maker in Indianapolis. I knew it would have to be colorfast so we didn't ruin it in the pool (or upset the hotel manager). And it would have to be big. We found that flag on the south end of the city.

From there it was on to Roberts Camera in Indianapolis to rent some lights. The pool at Megan's hotel was indoors.

Then I needed to recruit help. Karen Ducey of the Indianapolis Star - who previously worked at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and would 8-years later become my wife - agreed to help. She and a couple of children we recruited at the hotel would be needed to keep the flag from floating away, and the lights from falling into the pool. Or the photographer, for that matter, perched precariously on a ladder.

The result is what you see here.

DEAN RUTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Megan Quann, 2000. Puyallup's Megan (Quann) Jendrick won two gold medals in the 2000 Summer Olympics and a silver in the 2008 Summer Olympics.

I've used that flag repeatedly in the years I photographed the Olympics for the Times and in each instance the poster we created featured someone who would go on to medal at the Olympics.

In fact, quite literally dozens of Olympic medalists have posed in front of that flag in the past 12 years. Both summer and winter athletes, local and not. It's a possession I cherish.

DEAN RUTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Todd Hays, 2005. Hays won the silver medal in the four-man bobsled event at Salt Lake City in 2002.

DEAN RUTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Russ Powers, 2005. Powers won gold to lead the U.S. sweep of the 2002 men's halfpipe competition at Salt Lake and won bronze at the 1998 Nagano games.

What you can't see of course is the chaos that goes on around it. In the photograph of Apolo Ohno, for example, what you can't see is that there are a number of people standing all around him holding up the flag and the lights and everything else involved in making that photograph.

DEAN RUTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Apolo Ohno, 2002. Ohno has won eight Olympic medals in his short track speed skating career.

For Apolo, the opportunity to photograph him in front of that flag came at the end of a practice at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City at the end of 2001. He was quite literally walking off the ice to the locker room when we convinced his coach to let us photograph him. We threw together this plan in about two minutes. Ron is at the left trying to delicately balance one large light in his right hand, while holding up the flag in his left. Others were pressed into service to do the same with two more lights as well as the opposite side of the flag. Apolo took off his helmet, shook out his hair and crouched into the position you see. I pressed my shutter and this picture is the result.

This year, I won't be photographing the Olympic Games in London. But there are still local athletes who qualify and compete.

Last week, I was asked to photograph Ariana Kukors of Auburn. Like Megan Quann, Ariana made the US Swim team. I decided to break out my trusted flag. Kukors will swim this summer in the 200m Individual Medley. Kukors had a few minutes to spare - it always seems to be a few minutes that this has to get done - at the Mill Creek YMCA. I set up in a nearby conference room.

When Ariana and her mother stepped into the room and saw the flag, I recounted the story of how I first used it with Megan Quann - now Megan Jendrick - and how it had been good luck for everyone who posed in front of it.

"I remember that photograph!" Ariana said. So did her mother.

Ariana would have been about 11-years old when she first saw that picture. 12-years later it was now her turn to pose in front of it.

DEAN RUTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Ariana Kukors, 2012. Kukors will be competing at the 2012 London Olympic Games in the 200m Individual Medley.

I sincerely hope that flag brings her good luck.

For more portraits of Olympic athletes made using this flag, visit the gallery.