When was olympic torch first used

The top of the Olympic torch for the Games resembles a Japanese cherry blossom with five petal-shaped pieces where flames come out of. The torch is made out of aluminum, with some of it being recycled material from the temporary housing that was built following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

The flame is transferred from one torch to another during the relay. The first torchbearer, traditionally a Greek athlete, attends the lighting ceremony to receive the flame and then delivers it to the second torchbearer at the nearby monument for Baron Pierre de Coubertin , who founded the modern Games. You may be wondering what happens if the flame goes out. But lanterns containing flames from the lighting ceremony are available during the relay if needed. A woman was the first torchbearer for the first time ever last year when Anna Korakaki, a Greek shooting gold medalist in the Rio Games, kicked off the Tokyo Olympic torch relay.

Korakaki passed off the flame to Mizuki Noguchi, a Japanese marathon runner who captured gold in the Olympics. The relay would normally then continue throughout Greece following the lighting ceremony, but on March 13 the country canceled the rest of its relay due to COVID concerns. On March 20, the flame arrived in Japan via airplane. Naomi Kawase's Olympic film promises to be like nothing you've ever seen before. But organizers of the first post-war Olympics, in London, resurrected the event, securing its place as an ongoing tradition.

It was a curiosity," Barker said of the relay. It really lifted people's spirits. A unifying spirit. Over time, the relay's dark origin story has faded from memory, as each new host city makes it their own. The routes have taken everywhere from days to months to complete, with backup flames also from the original source in Olympia now kept in miner's lamps and carried alongside the torch.

Sometimes, plans are derailed by more than an extinguished flame: During the Tokyo Summer Games, a typhoon damaged the plane carrying the torch, and a backup plane was called in while a second flame was sent ahead to make up for lost time. The torch designs, usually selected by the host city's organizing committee, have also evolved, and now usually come from esteemed designers and artists.

Over the decades, the torch has become an important symbol of unity and identity. Some designs have echoed antiquity, like Rome's classical design in Others have taken creative risks, like Lillehammer's sleek birchwood handle and aluminum blade for 's Winter Olympics, or London's perforated gold design in that "became known as the cheese grater," Barker said. New York's radical female and non-binary skateboarders -- in photos.

History, origins and meaning of the iconic Games symbol — and if it ever goes out The flame represents the fire that Prometheus stole from the god Zeus in Greek mythology. By Alex Finnis Reporter.

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