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THE OLYMPIC FLAME & THE TORCH RUNS
The first Olympic Torch Lighting Ceremony in 1936 in Olympia, Greece
At the time of the first torch lighting ceremony I was ten years old and had attended my first Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen with my uncle, in February 1936. Being a high sports official of Austria and the Austrian Olympic Committee, he was invited to go to Olympia, Greece representing Austria and took me along and I enjoyed immensely and still remember so well, as if it had happened yesterday. The day before the ceremony we visited some of the ruins where the temples once stood and the day of the ceremony we made arrangements for a guide and were there at about seven in the morning in order to see everything and not miss the lighting ceremony which was at about 11 am or so and lasted about one hour and I remember that we were invited to a luncheon after the ceremony with all the Greek and foreign Officials being there as well. If you want to know further about the ancient temples, please go to the link "ANCIENT OLYMPICS 1", where I wrote about the temples and items of interest. It is really very interesting.
Olympic Torch Ceremonies in Olympia, Greece, started the very first time for the 1936 Olympic Games when on 20 July,1936, the Sacred Flame was ignited at the site of the ancient Olympic Stadium, by the Sun's Rays, using a parabolic mirror and reenacting what Dr. Karl Diem, the Director of the Berlin Torch Relay, imagined to have happened more than 2,700 years earlier, using a High Priestess and 14 Young Maidens for the Ceremony that chanted " Oh fire, lit in an ancient and sacred place, begin your race " and singing Pythian odes to ancient instruments. When the High Priestess lit the torch from the fire of the mirrored cauldron, she handed it to the first torchbearer, a Greek by the name of Konstantinos Kondrylis, who left Olympia to meet the next runner and relay the flame to the next torchbearer and so it went on and on, until it ended at the newly built Olympic Stadium in Berlin on August 1st 1936 taking 3,331 torchbearers 12 days and 13 nights, traveling 3,050 Kilometers in seven countries from Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany, where the cauldron at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin was lit from the sacred fire that I saw being ignited in Olympia and I feel lucky that I was able to see all this happen. I saw the sacred flame for the second time when it arrived in Vienna on July 29 at 8.45 in the evening, carried by 1932 Lake Placid and 1936 Garmisch-Partenkirche gold medal winner, figure skater Karl Schaefer who lit the cauldron in a large ceremony at the Heldenplatz, attended by Bundeskanzler Dr. Kurt Schuschnigg and other dignitaries, including my parents who were invited. Then I saw it for the third time at the Lustgarten on the 1st of August, three hours before the Olympic Opening Ceremony at the Berlin Olympic Stadium, when the flame arrived carried by a boy of the Hitler Youths, who lit the Olympic cauldron at the Lustgarten and spoke a few words. The ceremony was attended by top Nazi Officials Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels who made a long speech and also Reichsfuehrer Rudolf Hess among others.
Our museum honors the Olympic Flame and Torch Runs with displays of Olympic Torches, Uniforms, Diplomas and other items that relate to Torch Runs from 1936 until 2006 or 70 years of collecting them with the Olympic Torch Exhibits having been a favorite among visitors to the museum. Whenever I was invited to be a torchbearer and carry the Olympic Torch and sacred Flame of the Olympics, I considered it a great honor and it always reminded me of the events in Olympia and the great time I had there and at the other ceremonies, when I was only ten years old. During ancient times, the sacred Olympic Flame burned eternally from 776 B.C. until the last Olympics in A.D.393 in the two cauldrons at the Prytaneion, the Administration building in Olympia. For the first time during the modern era, the Olympic Flame burnt at the Marathon tower of the Amsterdam Olympic Stadium in 1928 and the next time for the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics at the Coliseum for the duration of the Olympic Games, but without the wonderful Torch Relays.
As historic documents of the Prytaneon has it, according to Greek mythology, Prometheus went to heaven and stole a spark from the sacred fire of the Gods and brought it to Earth and Zeus, where it became the symbol of human reasoning, freedom and creativity. The Olympic Flame is really that true symbol of the Olympics of the modern era, as it has been since 776 B.C. for the Ancient Games and although torch relays existed in Greece for Sport Festivals, 200 years after the first games at Olympia, the Olympic Torch Relay from Olympia, has only existed since the 1936 Berlin Olympics, especially concocted by Organizing President Dr. Karl Diem for Nazi Propaganda, but it is truly a great spectacle for the people that line the streets and wait to see the torch pass, which is a wonderful experience for millions of spectators and many times the only event, related to the Olympics that people are able to watch live. Although it was not taken from the ancient archives of the games in Olympia, but imagined by Dr. Diem and accepted by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, who used it for propaganda. It is a great spectacle for the people and as a ten year old, I was immensely impressed by the four torch ceremonies, especially the one in Olympia and I must give high credit to Dr. Karl Diem for turning such a great event, into Olympic reality.
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