What is the origin of the Olympic torch in the modern Olympic games?
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ANSWERS: 4
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The modern Olympic Games are based on the ancient Greek Olympics, which had a fire burning throughout them as celebration of Prometheus stealing fire from Zeus, so having an everlasting flame throughout the Games is based on that tradition. The torch is always lit at the site of the ancient games at Olympus, Greece by reflecting the Sun's rays from a parabolic mirror it is then transported to the site of the current Olympics. The fire was introduced into the modern games in the 1920s and the torch relay of runners started for the Berlin games in 1936. There's a lot of potential for debate here because of the involvement of Ancient Greek religion and the fact that Nazi Germany introduced the relay.
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Hitler started the torch relay to show his power. China is doing the same thing. This time Coca Cola, Lenovo (Chinese) and Samsung (Korean) are paying big bucks. These evil three do not care about human dignity, only money.
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It is amazing how the United States citizens kowtow to big corporations. As honorably as we may want to feel about athletic achievements the fact is that the presentation of modern Olympic Games is a corporate event. San Francisco city government definitely kowtowed to corporate and governmental backers of the U.S. torch run. Which in effect states that a 'police state' is better than a democracy. As much as this concept of having 'order' in the streets with a big police turnout is praised by certain city leaders as a safety precaution, the fact is that it is an attempt to squash dissent. But would some of today's believers in running this relay feel the same way if they knew that this relay custom was started by Adolph Hitler?
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The torch was reintroduced in the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. But the idea was present in the original Greek Olympics, when a fire was kept burning throughout the celebration.
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