History of the Olympic Torch, Flame, and Relay
by Mark Hughes
History: Flame and torch
The ancient Greeks believed
that fire was given to humankind by Prometheus, and considered fire to
have sacred qualities. Mirrors were used to focus the sun's rays to ignite
flames that would burn perpetually in front of Greek temples. Greek rituals also
included torch relays, although this was not actually part of the Olympic
Games.
The Olympic flame today
Today, the Olympic flame is
lit in front of the ruins of the Temple of Hera in Olympia, Greece. The flame emphasizes
the connection between the ancient games and the modern ones. In the past, a
high priestess of the Temple of Hera would light the flame using a skaphia,
the ancestor of parabolic mirrors.
History: Relay, Summer Games
The modern use of the
Olympic Flame began in 1936. It coincided
with the advent of a long relay of runners carrying torches to bring the
flame from Olympia to the site of the games. Once there, the torch is used
to light a cauldron that remains lit until it is extinguished in the Closing Ceremony.
1936 Berlin
Games
The first such relay took place for the 1936 Berlin Games. Some 3,330 runners brought
the flame through Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Germany. Similar relays have taken place for
every Summer Game since.
Their legs
must be tired
The 2004 relay was the first to start and end in
Greece; it was also the first to visit every continent, crossing 34 cities
in 27 countries before returning to Greece. The flame travels by plane
between cities, and is relayed by foot within cities.
Honorable
bearers
Being a torch-bearer is considered an honor, one given to
local residents with a record of community service, in addition to athletes
and celebrities.
We have the technology…
The torches
generally burn a gas fuel, and are specially designed to resist the effects
of wind and rain.
Criticisms and protests
The Olympic torch
relay began in 1936 at the Berlin Games.
Carl Diem, the secretary general of the Organizing Committee of the Games of
the XI Olympiad in Berlin, proposed using
a torch relay to bring the flame from Olympia to the games in Germany.
Modern historians have speculated that Adolf Hitler, then chancellor of
Germany who believed in the supremacy of the Aryan race, pushed for the
torch relay to symbolically link the Berlin games with the rituals and gods
of Ancient Greece.
Overly-commercialized
Critics state that
the Olympic torch relay survives solely due to the support of commercial
interests, rather than in the spirit of the original goals of the games: to
promote greater contact and interchange between countries and
athletes.
Disrupting the torch
In 2008, protests by human
rights groups disrupted the Olympic torch progression to Beijing. Protesters
in Paris managed to briefly extinguish the torch and dozens of people were
arrested in London after scuffling with police.
History: Relay,
Winter Games
Since 1964, the Winter Games have also had a torch relay
starting in Olympia. Of the three immediately preceding Winter Games, two
(1952 and 1960) had torch relays starting in the fireplace of skiing pioneer
Sondre Norheim, and one (1956) had a relay starting in Rome. The 1984 Winter
Games were preceded by two torch relays, one from Norheim's
fireplace, and the other from Olympia. The plan had been to mingle the two
flames, lighting the cauldron with the combination, but this was disallowed;
instead, only the Greek flame was used.
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