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Favorite Tourch Lighting?


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The jumper originally scheduled for that segment was Ole Gunnar Fidjestøl. The stand-in and actual "torch jumper" was Stein Gruben. But he didn't light the cauldron. The last torchbearer was the Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon.

See Wikipedia - 1994 Winter Olympics

Thank you so much!! :D I've always used this as an example of why "experience" does not always make the best aspirant. It just goes to show that the one who is "inexperienced" can turn out to be the one to shine. Thanks again......and remember: Life's too short to fold your underwear.

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Welcome, Sizibrun....

In case you missed it the first 2x, Ole Gunnar Fidjestol was designated the original jumper. Stein Gruben took a page outta the Tonya Harding book, and had Gunnar's knee bashed in, so he couldn't do it. Then Stein JUMPED TO GLORY!!! :lol:

LOVE IT !! thanks......... :lol:

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Barcelona and Sydney, of course. However, lately, after watching the unedited version of Sydney's lighting on YouTube (provided by GB's very own "Guardian"), in which the cauldron's pause is not edited out like it is on the IOC's site, it's gone down a notch for me. Partly because of that violent shaking at around 3:09, and also because it seems like the music and fireworks synchronization with the cauldron was thrown off because of its pause.

I'm also really fond of Athens'. Love the symbolism of the cauldron bowing down to the athletes of the world, and the final torchbearer, as if from heaven. And that camera angle from behind massively helps it (it doesn’t look as impressive from other angles, like

).
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for me: my favorites are Barcelona, Sydney, Athens. for winter: its the entrances that makes the winter games, and the answer is Lillehammer.

dont really see how Sydney and Athens fit in...Athens was pretty standard and Sydneys wasnt much special...sure it was emotional, but mostly for Australians.

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Athens was pretty simplistic, and even though I thought it was awesome, I dont think other cities would have been able to get away with it.

It was something that only the home of the Olympics could have pulled off.

Music helped it I think.

The finale of Pirogov by Shostakovich really made the lighting of the cauldron sound quite dramatic.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have to laugh at some of these posts.

Yes, Sydney, Athens even Seoul were innovative.

But lets go back to the era before computer generated openings, which is what Athens was and why Sydeny's torch had one of the most embarrassing openings *gasp* (was that blaspheme?)

Montreal was HUGE in 1976 with a Quebecois and Canadian bringing it in together, not withstanding the Canadian was a woman, something unheard of until 1968. Moscow's opening was probably one of the most innovative and difficult torch lightings without computer in 1980. And Los Angeles' raising of the steps was reversed in 2004 in Athens and the burning rings have been used constantly since then.

Barcelona is still my favorite and I am still in awe when I see it. But I have to say the Ron Clarke bringing in essentially a cherry bomb in 1956 and getting burnt doing it is still my fav. B)

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Athens was pretty simplistic, and even though I thought it was awesome, I dont think other cities would have been able to get away with it.

It was something that only the home of the Olympics could have pulled off.

Music helped it I think.

The finale of Pirogov by Shostakovich really made the lighting of the cauldron sound quite dramatic.

Agreed, the music helped a lot. That, and the camera angle.

And of course, if you’re a sucker for the "bowing down" symbolism of the whole lighting.

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LA84...I'd like to remind you that a Quebecois is a Canadian. Just as a Texan is an American. They may speak differently, but they are still the same.

Anyway, Barcelona will always be my fave for the drama. Sydney's was exciting the first time, and was still very elegant when Cathy "lit the water", but it just seems too technical and over-thought. Athens also had great drama. But I do somewhat agree that in any other nation, it would just be bland. Seoul was OK, but the best part was Sohn Kee Chung jumping for joy when he arrived in the stadium and the gasp from the crowd when that elevator thing went up...in practice, the flame was lit from the bottom.

Atlanta was one of my least faves...because it was an anti-climax. I did gasp out loud when I saw Ali standing there and was touched that they chose a man once known for his power and grace now afflicted with a terrible condition. But that flame refused to climb the wire and when it did, that flame made the cauldron look like a huge mess. That said, I actually kinda liked the shape of the Atlanta cauldron...the red scroll. Didn't care for the clumsy tower or the fact that the flame was a series of flickers along the edges of the scroll. But if it was a solid pillar with a large plume flame from the centre, it would have been more dramatic.

Winter-wise, I loved the quiet elegance of Nagano (even though I found the Nagano Games to be a snooze-fest), found Calgary to be really energetic, and enjoyed the drama of Lillehammer. But Torino was too technical and Albertville didn't connect. Why is a football star at the Winter Olympics?

Always hit or miss.

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LA84...I'd like to remind you that a Quebecois is a Canadian. Just as a Texan is an American. They may speak differently, but they are still the same.

Well yes and no. I know that he was/is Canadian but the symbolism was Canadian/Qubecois.

Sort of like Cathy Freeman was Aborigine/Australian.

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They are/were saving Jean-Claude Killy for Paris...whenever!!

Had Killy not been the OCOG co-chair, I think he would have been the obvious choice.

I think Platini was chosen for the universal message of sports (but I agree it was a weird choice).

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Well yes and no. I know that he was/is Canadian but the symbolism was Canadian/Qubecois.

Sort of like Cathy Freeman was Aborigine/Australian.

Not quite. The symbolism was English speaking Canada and French speaking Canada. A Quebecois is a resident of Quebec and Quebec is part of Canada.

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Barcelona was the best, so natural and technology wasn't so necesary there.

I steal 2 images from another post :P

lg_plce_13.gif

36.jpg

The Athens 2004 opening ceremony was one of the best ever, except for the disguisting cauldron lighting (i remember my cousin was watching the ceremony with me and told me this was something like a Bob Marley tribute

XD

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Not quite. The symbolism was English speaking Canada and French speaking Canada. A Quebecois is a resident of Quebec and Quebec is part of Canada.

O.K. - I just refer to French speaking Canadians as Quebecois. Or that annoying Canadian Province.

But, on the other hand, Canada refers to the First Nations as something separate from Canada, even tho they are Canadian as well. Qubecois seems to fall in that category in a historical perspective.

Same with Australia and the Aborigines. And Spain with the Catalans.

And us with the Native Americans/Indians, African Americans and the Creoles

No disrespect intended.

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None taken.

But it is all complicated. To clarify, a "Quebecois" is a person of a particular French background with roots in modern day Quebec - generally speaking, the decendants of the 5000 or so settlers who left France to settle in the New France colony of Canada...New France was the collection of French colonies of which there were 4 parts: Canada (modern day Quebec and parts of Ontario), Acadie (modern day Maritime Provinces), Terre-Neuve (parts of the Island of Newfoundland, of which St Pierre & Miquelon still remains), and Louisiane (the swarth of territory around the Mississippi River Valley and southern shores of the Great Lakes).

Realistically, Quebeckers (as they are in the English language) are residents of the province of Quebec. And not all French speaking Canadians are Quebecois. There are the Acadians, Metis, and other Franco-groups across the country who are not of "Quebecois" stock, but may or may not have connections to it.

The whole Quebecois thing is a very complicated and very political matter. It is all dry and boring, but I did a lot of research on it as I wanted to learn more about and understand the French issue in Canada. I think we too often have an inaccurate idea that Quebec was New France and that it was mercilessly conquered by a greedy Britain. Much of the truth is that France itself was not too terribly interested in the territory, and the court of Versaillies saw it merely as a place to get fish on Fridays and fur for court events.

But Montreal 1976 did not intend to make a political statement...they simply wanted to show Canada as a harmonious country and have the flame lit by youthful representatives of the "two founding cultures" of Canada. That is a term not in much use these days, but it was a big part of the Canada of the mid 20th century.

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I see where you are coming from and perhaps need to do more research myself.

I remember during 2002 Pelletier being referred to as "Quebecois" as well as the Duchesnay's in '88. On American TV. of course.

Schematics I guess are not always right.

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what i like about the Calgary cauldron lighting was the music. it sounds native and really pmp the energy out.

I bet, in some fashion to a degree, we may get to see something like this for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremony. I may be wrong, but the CBC intros I uploaded for Atlanta 1996 and Nagano 1998 had a CG of the cauldron, with the Flame lit, was shaped like the Calgary 1988 one.

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  • 2 months later...
Barcelona will never be topped. As for Sydney, has everyone forgotten how the cauldron stalled and got stuck on the lift for several moments? It was overly complicated.

Sydney wasn't overly complicated, it was the simple fact that they had not tested it with an actual flame to see if it work, in which had they did and saw the stalling, would have reconfigured it to go up more smoothly.

The concept of fire over water is simple and symbolic, once the cauldron got over the hurdle of the that "bug", it went up the stadium more smoothly.

I say Sydney has the best torch lighting. Who says Barcelona will never be topped? There can easily be torch lighting moments where the flame is given to an Olympic/Paralympic archer at one end of the stadium, only to fire it towards the other end, which has the cauldron, which then extends itself, over an extravagant waterfall feature, so that it can be clearly seen from miles around. :P

Beijing's torch lighting was good, innovative, but if only the torch lighter had not "run" faster than the projected scroll, or had there been some proper rehearsal or syncing of the moving scroll.

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