On Sunday, July 14, the Olympic Flame is due to arrive in Paris ahead of the Olympic Games; former L’Equipe editor Alain Lunzenfichter is among those due to carry it in the Torch Relay; SJA secretary Philip Barker takes a look at other sports journalists and broadcasters who have been torchbearers…
It seems only yesterday that the 2024 Olympic Flame was lit amongst the olive groves of Ancient Olympia in Greece, but on July 14th – “Bastille Day” – it is scheduled to arrive in Paris, 10 days before the first Olympic competition takes place.
As in previous years, huge and enthusiastic crowds have watched its every move.
It has also become common to invite journalists to take part and over the next few days, Alain Lunzenfichter – the distinguished former editor of the French sports daily L’Equipe – is set to carry the Torch for the sixth time, which may well be some kind of record for a journalist.
He will not be the first to take the Paris 2024 Flame, for even before it had left Athens, ERT Sports presenter Katerina Anastosopoulou was one of those who carried it on a glorious sunny day.
A hundred years ago when the Games were last held in Paris, there had been no Olympic Flame.
In 1928, a Flame did burn from the tower above the stadium in Amsterdam and there was a similar arrangement in 1932.
Organisers were constantly looking for ways to connect the Modern Olympics with the Games of antiquity but it was not until the 1936 Berlin Games, held under the shadow of the swastika, that a Relay to bring the Flame from Ancient Olympia was held.
This may account for reservations expressed in the press when a Relay for London 1948 was suggested.
The Evening Standard described the Torch Relay itself as an “antiquarian sham”.
“Quite apart from the bad experiences of the past, an event based on such antiquarian sham and portentous symbolism is out of keeping with the problems of the post-war world,” read the article.
Torch Relay organiser Commander Bill Collins fired off an angry rebuke to the paper.
“These pressmen can be the very deuce,” he confided to a colleague.
The cavalcade arrived at Dover, the night before the 1948 Games began. Huge crowds as it passed through Southern England overnight suggested that the public had more enthusiasm than some members of the press.
It was carried from Dover to Wembley in less than 24 hours and in those days, participation was limited to members of sports and athletics clubs and all of them men.
The final runner was John Mark, a Cambridge University medical student.
Short and direct Relays remained the order of the day until 1984.
Los Angeles Organisers wanted participants from all walks of life. Some would pay handsomely for the privilege as part of a “Youth Legacy Kilometer” (YLK) to raise funds for sporting initiatives for young people. This almost brought the whole thing to a grinding halt as Greek officials objected complaining that the Flame was tarnished by commercialism.
The Relay to Seoul in 1988 had included a journey by replica trireme in Greece. When it reached South Korea, Miss Korea was among those selected to carry it. The organisers also invited overseas journalists and the BBC were allocated a spot.
Commentator Archie McPherson is probably the first British broadcaster to carry the Olympic Flame.
It made such an impression on him that the Torch features prominently in his autobiography.
Gavin Bell of The Times was also a Bearer. He had been sent to Seoul the previous year by his newspaper. Many years later, he displayed his “family heirloom” on Antiques Roadshow.
In 1996, for the Centennial Games in Atlanta, Ian Wooldridge of the Daily Mail was invited. He had been our first Sportswriter of the Year two decades before. Other journalists also took part in a much-expanded event.
Olympic and athletics specialist Duncan Mackay was a Torchbearer in both 2008, when the Flame visited London en route to Beijing, and 2012. By this time, he had founded InsidetheGames.biz which became an authoritative source of news on Olympic and international sport.
The late Alan Hubbard, a friend and colleague of Mackay’s, carried the Torch in London as part of the 2004 Global Relay. Hubbard handed the Torch to Lord Botham, then just plain Ian Botham, outside The Oval Cricket Ground.
In 2008, Hubbard became Torchbearer again in very different surroundings.
There were protests against Chinese policy on human rights in Tibet. There were disturbances when the Relay visited London, Paris, San Francisco and Canberra on an ill-starred “Journey of Harmony”.
Hubbard was asked to participate in the Chinese city of Xi’an. He admitted that his conscience “was searched hard and long before agreeing to take part.”
In China, the security was tight, but there were no incidents.
Martyn Ziegler, then of the Press Association, took the Torch in Vancouver 2010. A decade later, he won our Sports Writer of the Year Award by which time he had moved to The Times.
In 2011, when the Olympic Torch was unveiled at St Pancras, many of the assembled journalists seized the chance to hold it.
The following spring, many hastened to Olympia to watch the lighting in glorious sunshine and the Handover under rainy skies in Athens.
At Land’s End, there was a very early start for many to witness the Flame’s arrival by helicopter for the first leg on British soil. Later that day, television commentator Barry Davies carried it on the outskirts of Plymouth.
He was the first of many journalists to do so.
Also in Devon, The Standard’s Miranda Bryant was watched by large crowds in Hatherleigh. Bryant had been amongst those who travelled to Greece for the lighting.
She described her experience as “carrying what suddenly feels like the most important thing in the world.”
Jonathan McEvoy of the Daily Mail carried the Flame in Bath.
“Having seen the flame lit in Ancient Olympia and having flown over with the lanterns last week, I can only attest that this was the most special moment,” he wrote.
He exchanged the Flame with Olympic modern pentathlon medallist Kate Allenby.
SJA Committee member James Toney, a highly respected Olympic journalist, was a bearer in Brigg, Lincolnshire.
Then in Newbury, it was carried by BBC Television’s Clare Balding, our Sports Presenter of the Year in 2012.
Reuters Sports Editor Paul Radford, a former member of the IOC Press Commission, carried the Flame at St Peter Port in his native Guernsey.
“I never expected I would ever get the chance to combine two of the great loves of my life – the Olympics and my home island in this unique way.”
A week before the Games, it was the turn of Owen Gibson of The Observer. His run came in Eltham.
In Royal Tunbridge Wells, International Sports Press Association President Gianni Merlo passed the Flame to Patrick Collins, later to become SJA President.
The Flame called in at BBC Television Centre and on what had been the finishing line for the 1908 Olympic marathon, Sir Bruce Forsyth wore trainers rather than dancing shoes as he received the Flame from Antoine de Navacelle, great grand nephew of Pierre de Coubertin.
Later, on the Charing Cross Road in Central London, it was taken on by Charlie Sale, a three-time SJA Columnist of the Year who received it from soon-to-be International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach.
“It was an extraordinary privilege and an emotional, unforgettable experience. You can’t be cynical however hard you might try after actually carrying that flame,” Sale told his Daily Mail readers.
They were sentiments that anyone who has carried the Flame will instantly recognise.
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