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Touchline issue 22 | November 2015 | 25
O
n April 21st, the Olympic torch will be lit in the Greek
city of Olympia. From there, it will make its tour of the
world before arriving at the opening ceremony in Rio
de Janeiro on August 5th.
On its way, it will visit over 300 cities in Brazil alone, covering
five regions in that vast country. Naturally, many famous
Brazilians will have the chance to carry the torch, but
ordinary Brazilians can nominate important people in their
own communities to partake in the relay.
And when it arrives in Rio, you can be sure that the torch will
take on a central role in all the drama.
The torch is an essential symbol of the Olympic spirit. It is
a metaphor for purity and the quest for perfection. It has
become as familiar as the Olympic rings.
So you might be surprised to learn it is a thoroughly modern
invention: and a Nazi one at that.
The ancient Greeks never used a torch relay in their
Olympics. There was a sacred flame present at the games,
which they used to honour their gods. And in other
ceremonies at the times there was in fact a torch relay, but
this was more a competition than a symbolic opening. Their
torch relay was designed to represent the theft of fire from
Zeus by Prometheus, which he then bestowed onto man.
The torch as a symbol came into being during the Berlin
Olympics of 1936. Germany was actually awarded the games
before Hitler’s rise to power and the games committee were
understandably nervous about the message they would
send by holding them in the new Nazi state.
Hitler himself was dubious about the games, claiming they
were run by “Jews and Freemasons”. But Joseph Goebbels,
his minister for propaganda, saw them as the platform for
image manipulation on a grand scale, and convinced the
Fuhrer that they were worth having.
The idea for the torch came from chief organiser
of the Games, Carl Heim. He imagined thousands
of relay runners carrying the torch nobly into the
Olympic stadium where they would light a fire in a
vast cauldron.
Goebbels, a master of manipulating the narrative, came
up with the notion of starting the relay in Greece. A key part
of Nazi identity theory was a connection with the classical
past. They admired and drew from aspects of the Ancient
Greeks, and by starting the ceremony in Olympia, would
be making a clear connection between the two societies.
The flame was lit –as it still is today- by a giant parabolic
mirror that focuses the sun’s rays, thereby ensuring the
purity of the flame.
After a long, choreographed relay through Eastern Europe,
the torch eventually was brought into the Olympic stadium,
under the gaze of 100,000 spectators, and Hitler himself.
In true Nazi style, this was reshot using a different runner for
the propaganda film that would later be released. The first
torch-bearer was not deemed noble enough.
Despite this sinister beginning to the life of the torch, it has
been used ever since.
The very next games could not be held until 1948, and some
of the Nazi stigma was removed from the torch by a soldier
named Corporal Dimitrelis. Before taking up the torch, he
stripped his uniform and laid down his weapons. He then
dressed in sports clothes and began the first leg of the relay,
which would end in London. It was a great symbolic gesture
for the end of the war and a good way to start the new life of
the torch.
Since then, the flame has been transported around the globe
in every conceivable way. Its underwater visit of the Great
Barrier Reef in 2000 on its way to Sydney is a standout. For
the 1976 games in Montreal, it was translated into code and
sent to Canada via satellite. A coder then translated that data
back into the flame.
It has been on boats, cars, planes –including the Concorde -
on bikes, submarines and taxis. It has been shot by bow into
the cauldron. It really has lived a fascinating life.
But when we discuss the torch, what we should actually
be talking about is the flame itself. There is no one torch.
Literally thousands of torches have been used since 1936,
and the design has become one of the essential parts of the
production of each Olympics. These flames can be shifted
between torches, which then become the property of people
along the relay.
While all become treasured mementos, some have got
serious market value. For example, in 2011 one collector
paid nearly US$400,000 for one of the torches used at the
1956 Helsinki games.
In the surprising life of the torch, it is probably not surprising
to learn that it has suffered some mishaps as well. During
the relays, it has been extinguished countless times. The IOC
has a provision of back-up flames to relight the torch, all of
guaranteed Olympic pedigree.
But there have also been more than a few times when
someone has sneakily used their Bic lighter to get the torch
started again!
So, despite the rather dubious ancestry of the
Olympic flame, it has become central to the
core message of the games and an indispensible part of the
tradition of the modern Games .