Torch Relay
The Olympic Torch Relay is the transfer of the Olympic flame from Ancient Olympia, Greece — where the first Olympic Games were held thousands of years ago — to the stadium of the city hosting the current Olympic Games. The flame arrives just in time for the Opening Ceremony.
For the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, the flame was lit in Olympia on October 22, 2009. It then traveled from Greece, over the North Pole to Canada's High Arctic and on to the West Coast and Vancouver. The relay started its long Canada journey from the British Columbia capital of Victoria. In Canada, the torch traveled approximately 45,000 kilometres (28,000 mi) over 106 days, making it the longest relay route within one country in Olympic history. The Olympic Torch was carried by approximately 12,000 Canadians and reached over 1,000 communities.
Celebrity torchbearers included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steve Nash, Matt Lauer, Justin Morneau, Michael Bublé, Bob Costas, Shania Twain, and hockey greats including Sidney Crosby, Wayne Gretzky, and the captains of the two Vancouver Canucks teams that went to the Stanley Cup Finals: Trevor Linden (1994) and Stan Smyl (1982).
Read more about this topic: 2010 Winter Olympics
Famous quotes containing the word torch:
“I do not know if you remember the tale of the girl who saves the ship under mutiny by sitting on the powder barrel with her lighted torch ... and all the time knowing that it is empty? This has seemed to me a charming image of the women of my time. There they were, keeping the world in order ... by sitting on the mystery of life, and knowing themselves that there was no mystery.”
—Isak Dinesen [Karen Blixen] (1885–1962)