A priestess prays to a lifeless solar god in entrance of a fallen Greek temple. If the sky is evident, a flame spurts that may burn in Paris all through the world’s high sporting occasion. Speeches ensue.
On April 16, the flame for this summer season’s Paris Olympics will probably be lit at the birthplace of the historic Olympic Games in southern Greece in a meticulously choreographed ceremony.
It will then be carried by means of Greece for greater than 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) earlier than being handed over to French organizers at the Athens venue used for the first fashionable Olympics in 1896.
Here’s a have a look at the workings and which means of the elaborate ceremony held amongst the ruins of Ancient Olympia forward of every fashionable Olympiad.
Couldn’t the French simply mild it in Paris?
Couldn’t the Academy Awards simply be introduced in a convention name? The pageantry at Olympia has been an important a part of each Olympics for almost 90 years since the Games in Berlin. It’s meant to present an ineluctable hyperlink between the fashionable occasion and the historic Greek unique on which it was initially modelled.
Once it has been carried by any means conceivable to the host metropolis — it has been beamed down by satellite tv for pc, lugged up Mount Everest and towed underwater — the flame kindles a cauldron that burns in the host Olympic stadium till the finish of the video games. Then it is used for the Paralympics.
SO HOW’S IT LIT? An actor enjoying an historic Greek priestess holds a silver torch containing extremely flamable supplies over a concave mirror. The solar’s rays bounce off each inch of the burnished steel half-globe and come collectively at one extraordinarily sizzling level, which ignites the torch.
Actress Mary Mina, enjoying excessive priestess lights a torch throughout the official ceremony of the flame lighting for the Paris Olympics, at the Ancient Olympia web site, Greece, on April 16, 2024.
| Photo Credit:
AP
This occurs inside the archaeological web site at Olympia, earlier than the historic temple of Hera — spouse of Zeus, king of the Greek gods, whose personal ruined temple lies shut by.
The flame is ultimately used to mild the first runner’s torch — champagne-colored this yr for France — and an extended relay by means of Greece leads to the April 26 handover at the Panathenaic stadium in Athens.
Need or not it’s so sophisticated?
Flames and sandals make for a formidable spectacle, and whereas the priestess’ largely tongue-in-cheek prayer to Apollo may not be answered, the parabolic mirror works effectively.
The concept was the results of Greek-German cooperation forward of the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany, which have been heavy on fanfare — and swastikas. It was primarily based on a mechanism talked about by historic writers in a non-Olympic context, and served the need to mix the video games of antiquity with the fashionable revival.
The 1936 improvements included a torch relay all the method to Berlin, and have been adopted, with modifications, ever since. An preliminary concept to do the relay flame in hole plant stalks — a nod to the Greek fantasy of Prometheus who stole fireplace from the gods — was ditched as impractical.
Did this occur at the historic video games?
No. But then fashionable athletes do not compete bare, or, when victorious, obtain olive wreaths and the proper to a marble statue in their identify — and, for three-times winners, in their precise likeness.
Also, there isn’t any temporary cessation of warfare to permit the fashionable video games to go forward, ladies not solely attend however compete as effectively, and wealthy sponsors — or heads of state — do not reap the glory for their chariot groups’ wins.
According to historic Greek custom, the video games of antiquity, held each 4 years in honor of Zeus, began in 776 B.C. They have been the most essential of the main Greek sporting festivals, the place occasions included working, wrestling and horse racing. Up to 40,000 spectators may attend.
Like in most preindustrial societies, life in historic Greece was deeply bodily and a well-exercised physique was seen as the mark of a gentleman.
The video games continued, with minor blips, till the new Christian authorities in Greece banned them as a part of the reprehensible pagan previous, in A.D. 393.
Could something spoil the present?
Rain. Heavy cloud cowl. Then the mirror would not work. But ceremony organizers in Olympia maintain a number of rehearsals in the days main up to the official lighting, which give a backup flame ought to the huge day show sunless.
Paris 2024 Olympics – Olympic Flame Lighting Ceremony – Ancient Olympia, Greece – April 16, 2024
Performers appearing as Priestess throughout the flame lighting ceremony for the Paris 2024 Olympics REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis
| Photo Credit:
ALKIS KONSTANTINIDIS
Potential protests are a worse headache. Twice this century — throughout the lighting ceremonies for the Beijing Summer and Winter Games — human-rights activists disrupted the ceremony inside the fenced and closely guarded archaeological web site. Even after the embarrassment of the first incident in 2008, Greek police have been unable to anticipate and stop the second, 14 years later.
The flame-lighting, with its broad TV protection — though the official stream shies from exhibiting any type of protest — is a magnet for activists who need to seize headlines. And even when historic Olympia can, in concept no less than, be effectively guarded, the route of the torch relay by means of Greece is just too lengthy to be protest-proof.
The 2008 incidents at Olympia and overseas led to the scrapping of torch relays outdoors Greece and the host nation.
