The flame that’s to burn at the Paris Olympics has been kindled at the web site of the ancient games in southern Greece.
Cloudy skies pissed off Tuesday’s efforts to provide the flame in the customary trend, when an actress dressed as an ancient Greek priestess makes use of the solar to ignite a silver torch.
Instead, a backup flame was used that had been lit on the identical spot Monday, throughout the last rehearsal.
The flame will subsequent be carried from the ruined temples and sports activities grounds of Ancient Olympia by a relay of torchbearers. The 11-day journey by Greece culminates with the handover in Athens to Paris 2024 organizers.
What to find out about 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 evident, a flame spurts that may burn in Paris all through the world’s high sporting occasion. Speeches ensue.
Performer performing as Priestess throughout the flame lighting ceremony for the Paris 2024 Olympics at the Ancient Olympia, Greece on April 16, 2024.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters
On April 16, the flame for this summer season’s Paris Olympics will likely be lit at the birthplace of the ancient Olympic Games in southern Greece in a meticulously choreographed ceremony.
It will then be carried by 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 trendy Olympics in 1896.
Here’s a glance at the workings and which means of the elaborate ceremony held amongst the ruins of Ancient Olympia forward of every trendy Olympiad.
Couldn’t the French simply gentle it in Paris?
Couldn’t the Academy Awards simply be introduced in a convention name? The pageantry at Olympia has been a vital half of each Olympics for practically 90 years since the Games in Berlin. It’s meant to supply an ineluctable hyperlink between the trendy occasion and the ancient Greek unique on which it was initially modelled.
Once 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 in the host Olympic stadium till the finish of the games. Then it is used for the Paralympics.
SO HOW’S IT LIT? An actor enjoying an ancient 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, 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 ancient temple of Hera — spouse of Zeus, king of the Greek gods, whose personal ruined temple lies shut by.
The flame is ultimately used to gentle the first runner’s torch — champagne-colored this yr for France — and a protracted relay by Greece results in the April 26 handover at the Panathenaic stadium in Athens.
Need it’s so difficult?
Flames and sandals make for a powerful spectacle, and whereas the priestess’ largely tongue-in-cheek prayer to Apollo may not be answered, the parabolic mirror works nicely.
The concept was the outcome 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 ancient writers in a non-Olympic context, and served the want to mix the games of antiquity with the trendy revival.
The 1936 improvements included a torch relay all the technique 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 hearth from the gods — was ditched as impractical.
Did this occur at the ancient games?
No. But then trendy athletes do not compete bare, or, when victorious, obtain olive wreaths and the proper to a marble statue of their title — and, for three-times winners, of their precise likeness.
Also, there is not any transient cessation of warfare to permit the trendy 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.
According to ancient Greek custom, the games of antiquity, held each 4 years in honor of Zeus, began in 776 B.C. They have been the most vital 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 ancient Greece was deeply bodily and a well-exercised physique was seen as the mark of a gentleman.
The games continued, with minor blips, till the new Christian authorities in Greece banned them as half 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 as much as 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 performing 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 kind of protest — is a magnet for activists who need to seize headlines. And even when ancient Olympia can, in idea at 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 outdoors Greece and the host nation.