The flame that’s to burn on the Paris Olympics has been kindled on the web site of the traditional video games in southern Greece.
Cloudy skies pissed off Tuesday’s efforts to supply the flame within the customary style, when an actress dressed as an historical Greek priestess makes use of the solar to ignite a silver torch.
As a substitute, a backup flame was used that had been lit on the identical spot Monday, in the course of the last rehearsal.
The flame will subsequent be carried from the ruined temples and sports activities grounds of Historic Olympia by a relay of torchbearers. The 11-day journey by Greece culminates with the handover in Athens to Paris 2024 organizers.
What to know concerning the flame-lighting ceremony in Greece for the Paris Olympics
A priestess prays to a useless solar god in entrance of a fallen Greek temple. If the sky is obvious, a flame spurts that may burn in Paris all through the world’s prime sporting occasion. Speeches ensue.
Performer performing as Priestess in the course of the flame lighting ceremony for the Paris 2024 Olympics on the Historic Olympia, Greece on April 16, 2024.
| Photograph Credit score:
Reuters
On April 16, the flame for this summer time’s Paris Olympics will probably be lit on the birthplace of the traditional Olympic Video games in southern Greece in a meticulously choreographed ceremony.
It’ll then be carried by Greece for greater than 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) earlier than being handed over to French organizers on the Athens venue used for the primary fashionable Olympics in 1896.
Here is a take a look at the workings and that means of the flowery ceremony held among the many ruins of Historic Olympia forward of every fashionable Olympiad.
Couldn’t the French simply gentle it in Paris?
Could not the Academy Awards simply be introduced in a convention name? The pageantry at Olympia has been a necessary a part of each Olympics for practically 90 years because the Video games in Berlin. It is meant to supply an ineluctable hyperlink between the trendy occasion and the traditional Greek unique on which it was initially modelled.
As soon as it has been carried by any means possible 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 within the host Olympic stadium till the top of the video games. Then it is used for the Paralympics.
So how’s it lit?
An actor taking part in an historical 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 metallic half-globe and are available collectively at one extraordinarily sizzling level, which ignites the torch.
Actress Mary Mina, taking part in excessive priestess lights a torch in the course of the official ceremony of the flame lighting for the Paris Olympics, on the Historic Olympia web site, Greece, on April 16, 2024.
| Photograph Credit score:
AP
This occurs contained in the archaeological web site at Olympia, earlier than the traditional temple of Hera — spouse of Zeus, king of the Greek gods, whose personal ruined temple lies shut by.
The flame is finally used to gentle the primary runner’s torch — champagne-colored this yr for France — and an extended relay by Greece results in the April 26 handover on the Panathenaic stadium in Athens.
Want 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 won’t be answered, the parabolic mirror works nicely.
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 based mostly on a mechanism talked about by historical writers in a non-Olympic context, and served the need to mix the video games of antiquity with the trendy revival.
The 1936 improvements included a torch relay all the best way to Berlin, and have been adopted, with modifications, ever since. An preliminary thought to do the relay flame in hole plant stalks — a nod to the Greek fable of Prometheus who stole hearth from the gods — was ditched as impractical.
Did this occur on the historical video games?
No. However then fashionable athletes do not compete bare, or, when victorious, obtain olive wreaths and the fitting to a marble statue of their title — and, for three-times winners, of their precise likeness.
Additionally, there is not any temporary cessation of warfare to permit the trendy video games to go forward, ladies not solely attend however compete as nicely, and wealthy sponsors — or heads of state — do not reap the glory for his or her chariot groups’ wins.
In line with historical Greek custom, the video games of antiquity, held each 4 years in honor of Zeus, began in 776 B.C. They have been an important of the most important Greek sporting festivals, the place occasions included working, wrestling and horse racing. As much as 40,000 spectators might attend.
Like in most preindustrial societies, life in historical Greece was deeply bodily and a well-exercised physique was seen because the mark of a gentleman.
The video games continued, with minor blips, till the brand new Christian authorities in Greece banned them as a part of the reprehensible pagan previous, in A.D. 393.
May something spoil the present?
Rain. Heavy cloud cowl. Then the mirror would not work. However ceremony organizers in Olympia maintain a number of rehearsals within the days main as much as the official lighting, which offer a backup flame ought to the massive day show sunless.
Paris 2024 Olympics – Olympic Flame Lighting Ceremony – Historic Olympia, Greece – April 16, 2024
Performers performing as Priestess in the course of the flame lighting ceremony for the Paris 2024 Olympics REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis
| Photograph Credit score:
ALKIS KONSTANTINIDIS
Potential protests are a worse headache. Twice this century — in the course of the lighting ceremonies for the Beijing Summer season and Winter Video games — human-rights activists disrupted the ceremony contained in the fenced and closely guarded archaeological web site. Even after the embarrassment of the primary 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 displaying any type of protest — is a magnet for activists who wish to seize headlines. And even when historical Olympia can, in idea at the least, be effectively guarded, the route of the torch relay by Greece is simply too lengthy to be protest-proof.
The 2008 incidents at Olympia and overseas led to the scrapping of torch relays exterior Greece and the host nation.
