The Olympic flame is among the most necessary symbols of the Olympic Video games. You may comply with flame’s journey from Olympia to the 2006 Winter Olympic Video games in Turin, Italy. Alongside the way in which you’ll be able to find out about Olympic historical past, geography, and mapping expertise.
Lighting the flame has been an necessary a part of each Olympic opening ceremony because it was first utilized in Berlin in 1936. The concept of conserving a flame lit all through the Video games was first utilized by the traditional Greeks in Olympia.
A couple of months earlier than the opening of the Video games, a ceremony is organized on the location of the unique Video games, the traditional sanctuary of Olympia. An actress dressed as a ceremonial priestess, within the robes of the traditional Greeks, lights the torch by way of the identical approach used within the unique Video games.
She makes use of a parabolic mirror to focus light rays from the solar. The parabolic mirror has a curved form. When it’s held towards the solar, the curvature focuses the rays to a single level. The vitality from the solar creates quite a lot of warmth. The priestess holds a torch within the middle of the parabolic mirror, and the warmth ignites the gasoline within the torch, sparking a flame.
If the solar is just not shining on the day of the lighting ceremony, the priestess can light the torch with a flame that was lit on a sunny day earlier than the ceremony.
The flame is carried in a hearth pot to an altar within the historical Olympic stadium, the place it’s used to light the primary runner’s torch.
For the Winter Video games, the relay really begins on the monument to Pierre de Coubertin (the person who based the trendy Olympic video games in 1896), which is positioned close to the stadium. Examine this 12 months’s flame lighting right here tiki torch B08V8K5NXZ.
When the primary torch is lit, the relay begins.
The flame is carried by relay all the way in which to its closing vacation spot. Though it’s often carried by runners on foot, different modes of transportation are additionally used. For air transportation, the flame is sheltered in a safety lamp, much like a miner’s lamp. At evening, the flame is stored in a particular cauldron.
The spotlight of the opening ceremony of the Olympics is the doorway of the Olympic flame into the stadium. The ultimate torchbearer is at all times a citizen of the host nation whose identification is stored secret till the final second.
The ultimate torchbearer does a lap across the stadium earlier than lighting the massive cauldron with the Olympic flame. Pigeons are then launched as a logo of the peace by which the Olympic Video games ought to happen.
The flame stays lit during the Video games.
You may comply with the torch on the official torch relay web site. There, you’ll be able to learn the relay diary, with day by day updates on the progress of the torch. You will discover video, a photograph gallery and an in depth description of the journey.
You may print a map of Italy and hint the route your self. Maps can be found on the College of Texas website, or from the Italian Embassy.
Youthful kids will take pleasure in crafting a torch to hold. The dltk-kids web site makes use of building paper whereas the torch from household crafts is manufactured from an empty paper towel tube and tissue paper.
Touring from Olympia to Turin, the Olympic flame ends its journey by lighting the Olympic torch of the Video games. On the conclusion of the Video games, the flame is extinguished. However this isn’t the top. As an alternative, this signifies the start of preparations for the subsequent Olympic Video games.