| On August 27 the
Flame arrived in Genoa, where the Greek Olympic Committee delivered it
to their Italian counterparts. A ceremony was held in honor of Christopher
Columbus before the house in which the great navigator was born, after
which twenty-two runners relayed the Flame to the central bridge of Porta
della Soprano. The next day the Flame was taken to the Ponte dei Mille
naval base and carried aboard the Palinuro, a training vessel of the Italian
Navy.
On August 30 the
Flame arrived in Barcelona, the port where Columbus was received on returning
from his discovery of America. The captain of the Palinuro delivered the
Flame to the vice-president of the Spanish Olympic Committee, who carried
it ashore and transferred it to the torch of the first Spanish runner.
He sped to the Plaza Cataluña, where the Flame was temporarily deposited
in an urn.
The solid fuel for
the nearly three thousand Olympic Torches carried by the runners was a
compressed mixture of nitrates, sulphur, alkaline metal carbonates, resins
and silicons. This material-which had to remain lighted for considerable
periods of time and occasionally under extreme weather conditions-produced
a brillant, red-yellow flame and was non-toxic and harmless to handle.
Unfortunately, it proved unexpectedly volatile. In Barcelona and again
in Medinaceli minor explosions occurred during exchanges, resulting in
slight burns to the runners. The cause was attributed to the too-rapid
contact of a lighted torch with an unlighted one, and precautions were
subsequently taken which prevented the recurrence of these incidents.
From Barcelona the
Flame crossed the provinces of Cataluña, Huesca and Aragon, and
was briefly installed in the Temple of the Virgin of Pilar in Zaragoza.
After passing through the province of Soria, the Flame arrived in Medinaceli.
When it reached Madrid, the Torch was taken to Columbus Plaza, where a
ceremony was held. Then, passing through Seville and Trujillo, runners
relayed the Flame to the port of Palos, arriving on September 11. It was
carried on the last leg of its journey through Spain by Cristóbal
Colón Carbajal, a direct descendant of Columbus. At Palos the Flame
was taken aboard the corvette Princesa, provided by the Spanish government
for the Atlantic crossing to San Salvador, one of the Bahamas Islands.
The Princesa sailed from Palos on September 12. Between Barcelona and Palos,
the Olympic Flame had been carried across 1,286 kilometres of Spanish territory
by an equal number of runners in eighty-eight hours and twenty minutes.
The Flame was received
in Las Palmas, capital of the Canary Islands, on September 14, and at San
Sebastián on nearby Gomera. Fifteen days later, the Princesa arrived
off San Salvador, at the exact site of Columbus's first landing in the
New World. The Organizing Committee and the Bahamas Olympic Association
collaborated on a special program commemorating this symbolic linking of
two events: the first landing in America and the first appearance of the
Olympic Flame in the New World. In the center of a plaza made up of five
circular levels designed to represent the Olympic Rings, a monument was
erected to receive the Flame. Six poles bore the Olympic Flag and those
of Greece, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and Mexico-the five countries
symbolically joined by the Route of the Olympic Flame. On a spiral platform
in the center of the plaza was a replica of the Tlatelolco brazier, a vessel
dedicated to Quetzalcóatl, a god of ancient Mexico. For five hours
the Olympic Flame blazed; then, in the evening, it left San Salvador for
Veracruz aboard the Mexican destroyer Durango.
On the afternoon
of October 6, the Durango arrived in Veracruz. The Flame was brought ashore
by seventeen swimmers, who carried it in relays for approximately 850 metres,
the last swimmer placing his Torch in the hands of a member of the Organizing
Committee. He in turn passed it on to the first Mexican runner, who began
the short journey to the Municipal Stadium. After a program of folk dances
and music, the Flame was borne through the streets to the principal plaza,
where Greek actress Maria Mosxoliu transferred it to a large urn.
The following day,
runners relayed the Flame to Jalapa, a journey of seven hours and forty
minutes. Here a Mexican athlete took the oath of the relay runners and,
after a brief celebration, the Flame was carried to the Municipal Palace,
where it remained for the night. From Jalapa to Orizaba the Torch-bearers
made their longest single-day's journey -227 kilometres. En route, the
Flame stopped briefly in Córdoba. Upon arriving in Orizaba, it was
taken to the football field of the Orizaba Sports Association, where the
Fire from Olympia was deposited in a ritual urn for the night. As at the
other stopping places along its Route, the Flame was watched over by an
honor guard of local residents.
The next day, Torch-bearers
continued along the Route of the Torch to Cuauhtémoc Stadium in
the city of Puebla. Four times between Jalapa and Puebla, near-hurricane
winds extinguished the Torch, but each time it was relighted from the safety
lamps ignited at Olympia. In Puebla the Flame was placed in another replica
of the Tlatelolco brazier, and a splendid ballet was performed by a group
of school children. The Flame was then taken to the Plaza de Armas, where
it remained overnight. On the morning of October 10, the Torch-bearers
set out toward Tlaxcala, passing through the villages of San Martín
Texmelucan, Apizaco and Huamantla. In Huamantla, a magnificent carpet of
flowers and white sand-more than three kilometres in length-was created
by 2,500 local artisans for the reception of the Flame. After a brief ceremony,
it continued on to Tlaxcala, where it was deposited in a vessel in Tlahuicole
Stadium. Then, en route to Teotihuacan, the Flame was carried through Llano
Grande, Los Reyes, Texcoco, Chiconcoac, Tizayuca, Tequisitlán, Tepexpan,
Acolman and Acatlongo. In Teotihuacan, thirtyeight kilometres from Mexico
City, at 7:00 p.m. on October 11 the Flame was installed on the first esplanade
of the Pyramid of the Moon, and the spectacular ceremony of the New Fire
unfolded (see Volume IV).
The following day
the Flame began the final leg of its journey-from Teotihuacan to Mexico
City. At 10:00 a.m. it reached the Monument to the Mexican People, where
a great crowd of spectators gave it an enthusiastic welcome. Here, in a
brief ceremony, two other Torches were lit from the Flame: one to be carried
by airplane to Acapulco, site of the Olympic yachting competitions, and
another to the National Museum of Anthropology, principal site of the Cultural
Olympiad. The arrival of the Flame at the main entrance to the Olympic
Stadium on the morning of October 12 was precisely controlled by officials
in radio-equipped cars. Outside the stadium it was received by a military
cadet, who passed it to Enriqueta Basilio, the first woman in the history
of the Games to carry the Olympic Flame to its final destination. Holding
the Torch high, she sped through the entrance and circled the track of
the packed stadium, as over a hundred thousand spectators and athletes
cheered and strained for a clear view. After a running ascent of the long,
majestic stairway leading to the rim of the stadium, the lithe young athlete
paused on the platform supporting the Olympic Cauldron, and lifted the
Torch to the four cardinal points. Then she moved the Torch toward the
Cauldron's jets, and the Olympic Flame surged forth to burn for the duration
of the Games of the XIX Olympiad.
During the fifty-day
journey, a total of 2,778 athletes participated in the relay of the Olympic
Torch, and many more served as escorts. The safety lamps lighted from the
original Fire during the ceremonies at Olympia had to be employed on thirty
different occasions. On October 15, at 10:30 p.m., the last of these security
lamps was put out. The Olympic Flame was in turn extinguished for four
years at 7:21 p.m. on Sunday evening, October 27, 1968, as the Games of
the XIX Olympiad came to a festive, triumphal close.
(Source
document: Official Report 1968,
Vol. 2, page 243 - 248) |
