 The
Olympic Torch Relay:
The Olympic Torch was first introduced at the 1928
Olympic Games in Amsterdam. It was first carried
by a relay of torch bearers in the 1936 Olympic
Games.
The Sydney 2000 Olympic Torch Relay will be the longest in history,
traveling throughout
Australia for 100 days. There will be 10 000 torch bearers throughout
Australia and each will carry the torch for one
kilometre.
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Mrs Monique
Miers and
Michelle in their uniforms. |
From
Rochedale State School, Mrs Monique Miers ran on Tuesday 13 June from Holland Park to Mt Gravatt
in Brisbane, at approximately midday. Check
out our special page with the pictures from
the Torch Relay. Most of Rochedale State School
went to see Mrs Miers run!! Mrs
Miers sporting achievements include a Gold Medal
in the 4X100 relay at the Auckland Commonwealth
Games in 1990, and a 6th in the Barcelona Olympics
in 1992. We are very proud of Mrs Miers. Michelle
Breckenridge will be one of the school children
escorts and ran on Tuesday, 13 June at 10am
at Belmont.
The torch that will carry the flame to the Sydney Olympics
was lit on 10 May, 2000 in a ceremony in the ancient birthplace of the games.
Cloudy conditions prevented the flame from being lit in a concave mirror as a Greek actress playing the role of a high priestess held the torch.
Traditionally the flame is supposed to be lit by
the sun's ray. A flame kindled during a preliminary ceremony
on Tuesday was used to light the torch to begin the longest relay in Olympic history.
The ceremony was led by Thaleia Prokopiou, a 28-year-old actress and it involved 20 women dressed in pleated, cream-colored robes before the Temple
of Hera, one of the most important goddesses in the ancient Greek pantheon.
The flame will travel for 10 days around Greece before being handed over May 20 to the
Sydney organizers in a special ceremony in Athens' all-marble Panathenaic stadium, where
the first modern Olympiad was held in 1896.
In a ceremony that for the first time included men, the priestesses carried the flame in an
urn about 100 yards through the ruins of Ancient Olympia, about 200 miles southwest of
Athens.
Two men blew horns to announce the arrival of the flame. A young girl then released a
dove symbolizing peace as Papacostas ran out of the stadium where athletes competed
from 776 B.C. to 394.
In Greece, it will travel nearly 1,600 miles through 207 cities, towns and villages before
starting its trip to the Pacific. The journey will include several unique additions, such as a leg of underwater travel.
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A plan
to rocket the torch into space fell through when a series of weather delays forced a
postponement in the launch of the American space shuttle Atlantis.
After leaving Athens, the torch is scheduled to land May 22 in Guam to commence the
Oceania leg, which will see it touch down in 11 South Pacific nations and be carried by
heads of state, supreme court judges and warriors clad in traditional dress.
On May 29, the torch will cross the international date line when it visits Vanuatu and
Samoa. It will then travel to American Samoa and the Cook Islands before crossing back
over the dateline en route to Fiji and New Zealand.
The final leg of the relay will began on June 8 when it
landed at
Uluru, ( Ayers
Rock.) The first torch bearer in Australia was athlete Nova Peris-Kneebone,
pictured here with the flame in the very first leg
of the relay in Australia. In Queensland, the flame
is
expected to be carried underwater for three minutes by a scuba diver on the Great Barrier
Reef. It will remain alight using a special underwater-burning fuel.
2 500
school children have also been chosen as escort runners in the
torch relay are back-ups in case torch-carriers run into trouble.
"They provide encouragement and physical support when necessary to
torch-bearers," a SOCOG spokesman said.
Click
here for the Sydney Morning Herald's list of
school children who will carry the torch.
Click
here for the Sydney Morning Herald's list of
Australian towns through which the torch will
pass.
Click
here for the Queensland route.
 The
2000 Olympic Torch:
The Sydney 2000 Olympic Torch owes its design
to the sails of the Sydney Opera House, the blue
waters of the Pacific Ocean and the curve of our
boomerangs. The form of the torch represents
optimism and a celebration of Sydney. It was
designed by Blue Sky Design of Paddington, Sydney,
and was first unveiled by Michael Knight, president of the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic
Games (SOCOG).
It
is made up of three layers. The inner layer is
stainless steel and contains the fuel system which
includes a combustor to keep the flame alight.
The middle
blue layer is anodised aluminium and contains the
canister. The
outer layer which encases the other two layers is
made of aluminium with a specially textured
finish. The
weight of the torch is a little over 1 kilogram
and it is 72 cm high and the flame will burn for
20 minutes. The fuel is a mixture of butane and
propane gases and is environmentally friendly
because it releases less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The
flame has been tested to stay alight in winds of
up to 65km/h and in a tropical downpour. Approximately 14,000 torches will be produced which will be offered to Sydney
2000 Torchbearers for purchase.
© 1999 SOCOG and IBM. All rights reserved.
Used with permission. |
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