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The Olympic Cauldron


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I do recall a VANOC RFP from 2 or 3 years ago that asked for a barge that could possibly hold the Olympic cauldron...who knows. It's possible that idea was scrapped and they used it for the Olympic rings that now float at Coal Harbour.

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I know that a floating cauldron in False Creek would be very attractive, but it's better not to start a cauldron overkill. Three cauldrons in the main host city -- I don't think that such a thing has ever been done before. And I think, for good reasons: It would lead to a habituation effect. Imagine the tourists saying, "Oh look, honey, there's another cauldron" - "*yawn* Big deal."

Besides, if they really planned a cauldron int False Creek, wouldn't we have noticed that they build a gas pipeline or even a platform connected to a gas pipeline there? Without external gas supply, it would be impossible to keep the cauldron lit for 17 days.

The only way of cauldron overkill I would really like is the Lord of the Rings style:

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YES! i agree...i'm telling you, a floating cauldron in false creek would be uber original, at least i think it would be.

Uhmmm...actually NO..it would NOT be very original.

The Berlin 1936 Olympic Organizing Committee beat Vancouver to it. They had placed a cauldron on an antique Hanseatic galley in Kiel harbor...and it burned there for the duration of the yachting events.

Read all about it in Chapter 7 of the Nobel-Prize-winning SECRETS OF THE OLYMPIC CEREMONIES.

Edited by baron-pierreIV
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OK thanks for FILLING me IN. I guess I SHOULD be placing an ORDER for your BOOK

Uhmmm...actually NO..it would NOT be very original.

The Berlin 1936 Olympic Organizing Committee beat Vancouver to it. They had placed a cauldron on an antique Hanseatic galley in Kiel harbor...and it burned there for the duration of the yachting events.

Read all about it in Chapter 7 of the Nobel-Prize-winning SECRETS OF THE OLYMPIC CEREMONIES.

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true enough. But each ceremony is 2-3hrs tops? My point is that it will be odd to have a video shot of this flame burning in an empty stadium. I guess that's why there us the vcc cauldron as well

Empty? The building will host 12 victory celebrations as well as the opening and closing. It will only be empty for 3 days.
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Is this your first Olympics? Nearly every single Olympic winter flame has burned in an empty stadium and in the past 30 years, only one has ever been at a competition venue (Lillehammer 1994) - or at least the main one used in the Opening Ceremony. Hey, even the summer flames burn in an empty stadium for a full week before athletics start.

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I expect the one in the stadium will have an innovative system for the sort/amount of fuel it burns, how's it encapsulated, and how it's lit. I'm thinking something like and old-school hurricane oil lamp. With those you light them from below and they're encased in glass. Maybe a lighthouse?

In this mock-up image the amount of the stadium used for the VCs could mean the cauldron is raised above the back of the stage--or seen directly behind it through an open back stage.

Photo-16469.jpg

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Also considered, more people watch the Games at home than actually attend them. Broadcasters cut to the flame at the beginning of their daily coverage, before commercials, etc. It's been easy to avoid showing an empty stadium behind a big outdoor cauldron. But inside BC place, it would be hard to avoid showing a lot of empty seats around smaller cauldron.

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you know i've never noticed the past olypmics, but i'm sure your history is spot on. i'm simply stating that fact that it may look odd to me, regardless of whether it's my 1st olypmics or my 30th.

i think it may look odd to me this time around b/c it's an indoor venue. and maybe you can fill me in, but i don't remember ever seeing an indoor cauldron during the olympics. empty stadiums are definitely at every olympics, but it's always been outdoors (i think). granted post production can do wonderings for the networks, but i was invisioning bc place empty with dimmed flourescent lighting and an enclosed flame...w/ those nasty pale blue seating i the background.

i gotta say that i can see it looking amazing during the VC ceremonies w/ the ppl, stage and concert lighting.

i guess the factor that stands out for me the most is that it will be indoors and that i'm having a bitter time letting go of the fact that a rectractable roof is going in right after the games!

Is this your first Olympics? Nearly every single Olympic winter flame has burned in an empty stadium and in the past 30 years, only one has ever been at a competition venue (Lillehammer 1994) - or at least the main one used in the Opening Ceremony. Hey, even the summer flames burn in an empty stadium for a full week before athletics start.
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There already have been indoor cauldrons at Olympic Games, if only for a few closing ceremonies which took place indoors.

For example this one:

Lake_Placid_Closing_Cauldron.jpg

Closing ceremony of Lake Placid 1980

Or this one:

(Excerpt of the Sarajevo 1984 closing ceremony starting at 7:00 into the clip -- with the cauldron visible at the beginning)

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Here's a bigger version of that picture:

4278479552_461739e116.jpg

I'm pretty certain that this is no cauldron but only a kind of signpost, displaying that that is the Olympic Village of Vancouver. It appears rather slim, its top really doesn't look as if there could be pipes or even a bowl below that white cover and it seems to have a wooden base -- not really a material one would expect of a structure which has a big flame on its top.

Somehow that remembers me of those strange lamps around Beijing's National Stadium. When they were constructed a couple of months before the Beijing Games, someone here posted a picture of one of them and thought that it is the cauldron:

beijing-smog_782115c.jpg

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And it is what? 10 ft? 12 ft away from the wooden roof? Are Canadian/B.C. fire laws so primtiive that they would allow an open-flame source to sit 10-feet away from a roof?

It's hard to tell how close it is from that roof.

Pic of area under construction from above:

lol.jpg

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That pic is not at Whistler and it's not False Creek either. Note the hill in the background. False Creek is flat.

There are hills 8 blocks away from the south side of the Village at False Creek.

And you can go to Google or Bing maps and see that red wooden building there too.

So no, it is the Village at False Creek.

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