The iconic Olympic flame is a tradition passed down from the ancient Olympics,
but that's not to say the modern Olympic flame hasn't had some stories of its own.
Here's the untold truth of the Olympic flame.
The Olympic flame is a pretty iconic symbol to the modern Olympic Games,
but one that sort of disappeared for a while, along with the Olympics themselves.
That said, the flame didn't come back with the actual Games.
The modern Olympic Games saw their revival in 1896 in Athens,
but not all of the traditions we associate with the Olympics were around at that point,
including the idea of having a flame burn for the entirety of the Games.
That particular tradition wouldn't come about until the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam introduced
the Olympic flame to the modern world. According to Sport-Olympic, the idea came from the architect
who was working on the Games — Jan Wils. There aren't a lot of details, but the stadium was
designed to be overlooked by a tower which could house the flame. And so, on July 28,
an employee from the Amsterdam Electric Board became the first person in the history of the
modern Olympic Games to light the now-iconic Olympic flame. Then this spectacle really
became a tradition four years later, with the 1932 Los Angeles Games lighting a flame of their own.
The Olympic flame isn't just any old flame, given the symbolism and importance it holds.
Because of that, though, it can't be lit by just any common lighter or match.
There's actually a whole ceremony for it that takes place in Olympia,
Greece — one that makes use of some pretty cool science dating from antiquity.
Basically, parabolic mirrors are the name of the game. According to "Smithsonian Magazine,"
parabolic mirrors are rounded dishes that are really good at concentrating light. By standing it
out in the sun, it reflects the rays of light into one particular spot; in perfect, ideal conditions,
that one little area could theoretically reach something close to 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. At
that temperature, it's no real problem to light a flame just by concentrating rays of light.
It's not quite so effective in reality, but it generally gets the job done.
This technique isn't a new thing,
though. It's been around since ancient Greece — Archimedes supposedly made use of the method
against a fleet of ships — and provides a fire lit purely by the power of the sun.
Even once the idea of the Olympic flame was introduced into the modern Olympic Games,
the new ceremonies weren't done yet. The torch relay was still to come,
and its modern origin had less benevolent inspirations. Specifically: Nazi Germany.
Berlin being awarded the honor of hosting the 1936 Olympics was sort of muddied a little by
the rise of Hitler a few years earlier. Hitler himself actually didn't really like the Olympics
but was convinced into hosting because of the publicity that the event could bring to Nazi
Germany. When it came to the torch relay, though, that pretty much came from the mind of one man:
Carl Diem, the organizer of the Games. He pictured a long, unbroken line of runners,
linking ancient Olympia to Berlin, with the flame carried by torches of German make.
Ultimately, though, the Nazi party saw the opportunity to turn this idea into a clever
bit of political theatre and propaganda; they pumped funds into the torch relay and used it
as a show of power, Nazi supporters showing up in cities that the torch passed through.
Plus, Hitler, for his dislike of the modern Olympic Games, did admire ancient Greek
athletes and used their image to promote Nazi ideals of supremacy and perfection.
"What do we do with that information?" "What do you do with any information? You
just stuff it deep down and keep an eye on it."
Problematic origins aside, there are always all the pictures of celebrities and famous
athletes carrying the torch. But did you know that running with the torch isn't just a matter
of being famous? Prior to the 1970s, being a torchbearer involved being a young male athlete,
but since then, the qualifications have opened up. According to Olympics.com,
totally normal people can be torchbearers! Mostly, organizers are looking for inspirational
people within local communities — people who represent positive qualities like tolerance,
unity, and perseverance. And those people can come from anywhere, regardless of age,
nationality, gender, and the like; diversity is the goal.
That said, the first and last runners are a little different. They're usually sporting
giants in the host country or people whose presence can send strong messages.
As for security? That's also taken care of. For the 2020 Tokyo Games,
a group of security runners trained to accompany the torchbearers and protect the flame,
ready to make sure nothing could ruin the experience.
So even though it's true that tradition tends to say that the Olympic flame starts its journey in
ancient Olympia, that doesn't mean that every single Olympic Game has actually
had its flame lit there. For one, the earlier Olympics, like the 1928 Amsterdam and 1932 Los
Angeles games both had their flames lit on site. After all, there wouldn't be any sort
of torch relay to get it to the host city from Olympia for another couple of years.
But the lack of a torch relay isn't the only reason why the flame wouldn't be lit in Olympia.
The 1952 Winter Games in Oslo ended up being another example of that,
with the flame being lit in Morgedal, Norway. As for why? Instead of a flame
meant to commemorate the ancient Greek Olympics, this was meant to honor the origins of skiing.
The torch relay began in the home of a Norwegian skiing legend and was carried
as a "symbolic Nordic" flame, rather than an Olympic flame — one that was
also a reference to Norwegian skiers using torches to find their way in the dark.
With the Olympic torch relay being a tradition for decades, there have, of course, been a number of
pretty unique ways to transport it. Add into that the fact that the torch has had to make it all
around the globe, crossing oceans, and the Olympic flame has moved around via strange methods.
"Are you formally challenging me to undertake a journey around the world in 80 days?"
For one, in the 1976 Games, the flame had to make it from Athens to Ottawa, and while boats
and planes were definitely options, the organizers decided to take a decidedly less-than-conventional
approach. According to the LA Times, the flame was moved by a satellite. The flame, still in Athens,
was used to trigger an electronic pulse, and that pulse was sent across the ocean. Once it arrived
in Ottawa, it turned on a laser beam, which relit the flame. Sure, it's kind of a weird
way to claim that the same flame travelled from Greece to Canada, but it still counted.
For another fun one, you can take a look at something more recent. In the year 2000,
the Olympic flame took a trip underwater at the Great Barrier Reef. Per BBC, a special torch
was created, carrying a chemical that burned at more than two thousand degrees Celsius.
With that, the flame worked more like a flare, one which kept water from entering and ruining
the torch while simultaneously looking like the iconic flame, even while underwater.
In 2014, the Olympic flame took a longer trip than it ever had in the past: from Earth to space.
Okay, to be entirely fair, the 2014 Sochi Games torch wasn't entirely trailblazing.
According to Space.com, two other torches had gone up beforehand — one in 1996 and another
in 2000 — which were either replicas of the torch, or were, at least, unlit.
2014 was different, though. NASA reports that the Olympic torch officially took its
journey into the cosmos on a Russian rocket, which brought it onto the International Space Station.
There, the nine crewmembers got to be a part of the torch relay themselves,
floating through the station and carrying the torch along its length.
But the most exciting part? The torch actually got to go out in space.
And not "in the ISS in space" but outside of the station, too, with some engineers
taking the torch out past the airlock for a spacewalk. Neither of the earlier two torches,
both launched up in NASA space shuttles, took a trip outside of the station like this one did.
Part of the deal with the Olympic flame is the fact that the flame that you see light up the
cauldron in the host city is the same as the one lit in ancient Olympia. The torch relay gets that
flame from point A to point B, and you can't just replace it with some random fire from a match.
So you might have some questions. Like,
what if the flame goes out during the torch relay? Or during the Games? What then?
Well, there are backup flames for that. According to the Lancashire Mining Museum, four backup
flames are kept in small miners lamps, all lit from that original flame started in Olympia.
Those four fires are the ones kept alive when the Olympic flame is taken on a plane and are
constantly kept under careful watch. "Flame attendants" always accompany those flames, whether
on a plane or in a hotel room, where at least one person always has to be awake, just to make sure
no one tampers with the symbolic flames or their lanterns, decorated with Olympic designs. Those
lanterns can be used to relight each other, should one of them go out, relight the torch, or relight
the cauldron itself, as was the case in 1976. The flame was accidentally relit with a cigarette
lighter before being quickly extinguished and rekindled from one of the lanterns.
The Olympic flame is meant to burn throughout the entirety of the Games, but what about afterwards?
Well, the International Olympic Committee tells all about the main thing for the end
of the Olympics: the Closing Ceremonies. There are a bunch of parts to it, but at the very end,
the Olympic flame is extinguished, signaling the official end of the Games.
That's really where any traditions end, though. The Olympic cauldrons, in particular,
tend to have varying fates. According to a couple of articles by Myles A. Garcia,
a decent number of both the Summer and Winter Olympic cauldrons have found their way to various
museums. A handful have also been reused, as was the case for Los Angeles. The cauldron
still stands atop the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and was used in both 1932 and 1984.
Similarly, some of the cauldrons just continue to stand where they were built.
But a few have more interesting stories. The 1936 Winter Olympics cauldron actually went missing
during World War II and it wasn't found until 1975, at which point it was barely recognizable
and being used as a trough for cattle. The 1948 Winter Olympics cauldron was also lost,
and is still missing! Rome's 1960 cauldron was dismantled, its whereabouts unknown,
and Stockholm's 1956 cauldron was declared lost, hopefully just misplaced in a stadium somewhere.
As you can probably expect with any object as high-profile as the Olympic flame, there have
been at least a couple of times where it's been the target of attacks. Or pranks, more like.
The earlier of those incidents — called the "Olympic Flame Hoax" — took place during the
1956 Olympics. While the torch relay was passing through Sydney, a student named Barry Larkin
decided to get himself involved. He forged a torch and pretended to be one of the torch runners.
The police didn't question him at all and even escorted him to the town hall, where he presented
his fake torch to the mayor. Larkin slipped away safely, and the mayor didn't even realize
he'd been given a fake torch, going on with the ceremony until someone told him what had happened.
More recently, for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, there were a couple incidents. Per Deseret News,
in Melbourne, a teenager jumped out at one of the torch runners and managed to steal
the flame before being caught by police. Just a month later, another teenager interrupted
the torch relay with a fire extinguisher to try and put out the Olympic flame.
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