Where it All Started....

First let me say that I am really sorry I have not been posting.  Last week I was pretty sick with a cold and spent most of the week in bed.  That put me behind on my schoolwork and I have been trying to get everything caught back up.  I hope our family is all over this sick stuff and I can get going on things again!  So let's go way back to the very beginning....the very first Olympic Torch Relay that started an amazing tradition.

The ancient Greeks believed that fire was a gift from the Greek God Prometheus and believed that fire had sacred qualities.  Often flames burned in front of Greek temples.  In ancient Greece, a scared flame burned on the altar of the goddess Hera during the Olympic Games.  Heralds often carried torches as they went from city to city in Greece and announced the Games along with a sacred truce that lasted for the duration of the games.

  

The first flame appeared in the modern Olympics in Amsterdam in 1928, but the torch relay did not start until the 1936 Olympic Games.  Prior to the 1936 Games in Berlin, about 3,330 runners carried the flame through Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia and finally into Germany.  This marked the start of what is now an Olympic tradition. 

  

In 2004, the Olympic torch relay started and ended in Greece.  It was the first torch relay to cross through every continent going through 34 cities and 27 countries before returning to Greece.  In more recent years, the focus of the torch relay has been in the country hosting the Olympic Games.  The relay allows for people from all over the world to discover the history and culture of the host country.

 

Before the start of modern day Olympic Games, the Olympic flame is lit in front of the ruins of the Temple of Hera in Olympia, Greece.  The flame is lit using a curved mirror and the rays of the sun.  Runners then carry the torch from Olympia to Athens.  In a ceremony at the ancient Panathenaiko stadium in Athens, the flame is handed over to the host city who then delivers the flame to the site of the Games.  Once at the site of the Games, the torch is used to light a cauldron during the opening ceremony of the games and that remains lit until it is extinguished in the closing ceremony.

The torch relays that have brought the flame from Olympia to the Olympic host city has become one of the most symbolic events associated with the Olympic Games.  It is a celebration of the Games that builds excitement leading up to the start of the Games.  The flame represents purity.  Just like the heralds who proclaimed the sacred Olympic truce, the runners who carry the Olympic flame carry a message of peace, unity and friendship on their journey with the torch.


On May 10, 2012, a ceremony will be held at the Temple of Hera in Ancient Olympia, where the Flame will be lit using the sun's rays.  It will then begin its journey across Greece, travelling to the island of Crete before going to Piraeus, Thessalonica, Xanthi and Larissa among many other communities.  The Flame will arrive in the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens – site of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 – on May 17, 2012, where the Flame will be given to the London 2012 delegation.  The flame will then depart by plane to a Royal Navy air station in Cornwall before starting its 70-day journey around the UK from Land's End on May 18, 2012.  Since the Olympic flame is classified as a symbolic flame, the Civil Aviation Authority has granted permission for the flame to be carried on board the aircraft.  The flame will travel in a ceremonial lantern that can burn safely for up to 30 hours.  British Airways will carry the Olympic Flame on board a gold-liveried aircraft, flight “BA2012.”