Watching
the flame travel from Greece to Canada on a surfboard made me wonder - has it ever gone out?
I mean, I am sure that the keep a fire burning somewhere so they can relight it if necessary…but… has it ever been necessary?
I think I can remember at least two occasions where the flame went out. It’s much late to google in-depth right now; see Re-igniting the Flame
Thanks for the amzing quick reply.
[QUOTE=wikipedia]
After a rainstorm that doused the Olympic flame a few days after the games had opened, an official re-lit the flame using his cigarette lighter. Organizers quickly doused it again and relit it using a backup of the original flame.
[/QUOTE]
That’s pretty funny.
(and silly)
That’s Montreal for ya.
“Eh? Ze flame went out? It’s no problem, I always have my smokes wit me.”
It went out during the torch relay in 1996. (Go here and scroll down under “Safe and sound”.)
A slightly cheeky answer to the OP is that it goes out at the end of every Olympic Games.
Visitors to Olympia in Greece are often surprised to learn that there is no eternal Olympic flame. It is lit anew for each games by the sun’s rays and a parabolic mirroe.
…Which, if you look at it another way, means that the Olympic flame won’t go out for another five billion years.
I saw him at a disco tech just last weekend. He aint that social, but he does get out once in a great while.
The torches being used for the current relay across Canada have gone out several times and Bombardier have redesignedit to offer more protection from winds and other harsh weather.
A co-worker carried the torcha couple of weeks ago across a long bridge on a windy rainy day. It went out on her and she had to get a new one given to her. I believe it was lit from a miners lamp that houses the ‘original’ flame.
[QUOTE=Erin]
It was insane!!! It was so windy that the flame went out half way through my run and I had to get a replacement torch.
I can’t quite warm up, but I wouldn’t want to change a single second of the experience. I got a call in the hotel room the night before my run asking me if I was afraid of heights…um, even if I was, I don’t think I would have admitted it at that point…the bridge was huge. Much more impressive than the picture shows. Yes, the flame went out 1/2 way through my run due to the extremely high winds up on the bridge and it had to be re-lit. It was actually snowing up there!
[/QUOTE]
For the win! 