BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 7 : White Side Up : But Not Right Side Up for Estonian, Whose Flag Is Flown Improperly at Medal Ceremony

BARCELONA —  Erika Salumae, gold medalist in the women’s match sprint, didn’t mind it when her Estonian flag went up the pole upside-down.

“The next time they will get it right,” the cyclist said with a smile Friday. “It’s the first time.”

Salumae, a two-time world champion, beat Germany’s Annett Neumann in the final to win her second gold medal. This time it was for her own country.

She won the event at the 1988 Seoul Games as a member of the Soviet Union.

On the medals stand, Salumae beamed as she received her medal. But as the flag went up during the national anthem, a wide smile cut across her face when she noticed the officials’ mistake.

The Estonian flag is three wide vertical stripes--blue on top, black in the middle and white on bottom.

Salumae pointed at the flag with a smile as she walked away from the podium after the ceremony.

“It is the first time in these Olympic Games we see the Estonian flag raised,” Salumae said. “It was not only for me, it was for my people.”

She was the first former Soviet to return to win a medal for an independent state since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Salumae said the medal meant more to her now than it did in 1988. “Now I ride for my own country,” she said.

Estonia had won Olympic weightlifting and wrestling medals when it was independent before World War II. It was absorbed into the Soviet Union but returned to the Olympic movement as an independent country at the Winter Olympics in Albertville earlier this year.

Salumae, a 30-year-old from Parno, has been a force in women’s sprinting since 1984. She won the world title in 1987 and 1989 before back injuries slowed her in the past two years.

Now she is finding it hard in her new country.

“I train in Estonia and it is not easy,” Salumae said. “Before in Moscow we had a very good velodrome and food. Now it is difficult. I had to pay for my own bike.”