Summer of Sports '21: The Olympic Torch Relay

BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB/TK

Friday marks the official opening of The Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo, Japan, with the Opening Ceremony to take place in the new National Stadium, at the site of the first Olympics to be held in Asia in 1964. The Opening Ceremony will feature all the pageantry that's associated with the opening act of the world's greatest sporting spectacle, and this year will take on greater meaning after the events of the past year. It will culminate with the entrance of the Olympic torch, and the eventual lighting of the Olympic flame, marking the climax of a journey that begins in the birthplace of the Ancient Olympics, and culminates in the Olympic city to officially begin the Games. 

When the Ancient Olympic Games were originated in Olympia, the Greeks lit perpetual flames in their temples having being lit by the sun's rays, and where eternal flames burned at the altar of goddess Hestia, Zeus and Hera. Even today, the ritual of the torch being lit still remains to this day, and it's here where the modern Olympic torch relay begins at the ruins of the Ancient Olympic Stadium, which hosted every Ancient Olympiad from 776 B.C. until it ended in 393 A.D. more than a millennium later.

It's after the torch is lit that its global journey begins, with a relay that usually spans around 100 days and reaches its climax with its arrival in the Olympic Stadium at the end of the Opening Ceremony. But given the extraordinary circumstances of an Olympics being postponed by exactly one year to the 125th anniversary of the first Modern Olympics in 1896, the flame has been safely kept in the host nation until it was reignited to provide a sense of hope during this time of peril in our world. Fittingly enough, the Tokyo relay began again in March to coincide with the arrival of Japan's iconic cherry blossom season.

Pic: Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee

The roots of an Olympic torch relay in modern times began in 1928 when a symbolic flame was used in Amsterdam, and eight years later the idea came into fruition when the head of the Berlin Olympic organizing committee found that torch races were held in ancient Olympia. It gave him inspiration to have the flame be lit in the original Olympic Stadium, and then be transported to Berlin through a relay in Greece and the host city, and later through the host nation.

Those who carry the flame on these Olympic torch relays convey messages of peace on their journey the same way that messengers proclaimed the Olympic truce around Greece and later to the world, while the torches they run with have become icons themselves. Along with Olympia, the relay also makes a stop in the first host city of the modern Games, Athens and the original Olympic Stadium used for the 1896 Games, before it begins its journey towards the host nation.

An average Olympic torch relay sees thousands of torchbearers of all ages carry the flame, while tens of thousands of miles are being accumulated along the route, while also embracing many different climates from the snow to the beach to even being underwater while en route to the Sydney 2000 Games. As it passes through cities, towns, regions and monuments via all kinds of transport, communities all being united by the awe-inspiring sight that comes when something as mesmerizing as the flame passes by. 

Then, comes the moment everyone waits for: the torch arrives in the host city just days before the Opening Ceremony - and it's during the main event itself that enters the Olympic Stadium. The identity of the final torchbearer and the one who lights the cauldron is as closely-guarded a secret as any that only a handful of people know about until the moment arrives, which creates for the most dramatic and moving moment of any Opening Ceremony.

Typically, the honor of lighting the flame goes to a member of the host nation's proud Olympic & sporting history: the last two times the Games were held in America, the honor was bestowed upon Muhammad Ali in Atlanta and the Miracle on Ice hockey team in Salt Lake City. The flame has also been delivered in dramatic fashion at the Ceremonies, from Antonio Rebello's flaming arrow in Barcelona to a ski jumper two years later in Lillehammer.

So, which prestigious Olympian from Japan's proud sporting past will have the honor of lighting the flame -- or will it be someone else? Friday will offer the answer to that question, all following a night of celebration and hope that begins an Olympic Games that is truly unlike any other.

- I AM DC

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