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The sacred Olympic Torch Relay tells tales of humanity; for the Tokyo edition it will start from Fuk
by Arianna Lane marketing headWhen Prometheus stole fire from the gods to gift it to humanity, he was
punished. But from that time fire got a divine connotation.
In ancient Greece, when Olympics
was held at Olympia a sacred fire was kept burning throughout the
celebration. Ancient Olympics that historically began in 776 B.C was a
part of Greek religious festival for Zeus who was the king of the
gods in Mt Olympus. During Olympics,
along with the continuous burning of the sacred fire, there were additional
fires that lit up the temple of Zeus and his wife Hera at Olympia.
This Greek Pagan festival
gradually diminished with the invasion of Romans in Greece. As the Roman rulers started to embrace
Christianity they strongly condemned Pagan religion and this state took a
massive turn as Theodosius became
the Roman king. He legally abolished the festival at Olympia thus bringing an
end to an immensely popular Greek socio-tradition.
Almost after 1500 years, Olympics was reinstated in Greece with the term
of Modern Olympics in 1896. But
there was no Olympic flame in the first few editions of the Modern Games. It
was in 1928 Amsterdam Olympics
that the tradition of lighting up of Olympic flame was reintroduced. An employee of the Electric Utility of Amsterdam was invited to lit
the flame in the Marathon Tower of Amsterdam.
In 1932 Los Angeles Olympics,
this lighting up of the flame took place at the top of the gateway to the Olympic stadium. But on both the
occasions the flame was lit just to have a significant beginning of the Games.
When Berlin got the Olympics right of 1936, Carl Diem- the German
sports administrator under the Nazis innovated the idea of an Olympic
Torch Relay. He suggested to start the relay from Olympia in Greece,
thus to take back the flavour of Olympics to its birthplace. It was also
included as a rule in the Olympic Charter where it states, “The Olympic flame is the flame which is kindled in Olympia
under the authority of the IOC.”
On 20th
July 1936, amidst the ruins in front of the altar of Hera at Olympia, the
Olympic flame was lit naturally from a parabolic mirror reflecting the bright
sun rays. Greek runner Konstantinos Kondylis ran the first steps to carry the
first Olympic torch in 1936
that travelled for 12 days to reach Berlin from Olympia.
Since then the Olympic Torch Relay has become a ritual in the Olympic tradition.
It starts with the idyllic way of lighting up the torch from sun rays reflected
on a mirror at Olympia by eleven women representing the Vestal Virgins dressed
in archaic-style clothing. The torch tours around Greece and is then handed
over from the prior Olympic city to the host city at Panathenaic Stadium at Athens.
The 2020
Olympic Flame Lighting ceremony is scheduled to be held on 12th
March 2020. The Flame will be handed over to Tokyo Olympic Committee on 19th
March 2020.It will arrive in Japan on 20th March 2020 and hence the
Japanese leg of the relay will start on 26th March 2020 from
Fukushima and will cover all 47 prefectures of Japan.
As the Olympic Torch Relay always represents humanity and celebrates
life, Japan considers this edition’s flame as the Flame of Recovery. It is to
show solidarity with the victims of the earthquake and tsunami affected areas
specially Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima. Therefore this hope of light will
be specially displayed in these areas from 20th March to 25th
March 2020.
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About Arianna Lane 
marketing head
53 connections, 3 recommendations, 171 honor points.Joined APSense since, February 22nd, 2019, From Utah, United States.
Created on Jan 1st 2020 06:15. Viewed 495 times.
