Olympic Flame

THERE MAY BE no greater example of mankind's need to create significance where none exist than the Olympic Torch Relay, which recently came through our area while slowly winding its way toward Salt Lake City for the upcoming Winter Olympics. To many, the Olympic Torch Relay embodies the enduring human spirit and the uniting of a community for a common cause. To me, the relay represents the gullibility and silliness of our species. For those unfamiliar with the Torch Relay, months before a new Olympics is to begin, a sanctified ceremony is held in Olympia, Greece.

The Olympic flame will make unprecedented visits to South America and Africa in its global journey from the Games' ancient birthplace. After the lighting at Ancient Olympia, birthplace of the Games 3,000 years ago, the torch will pass through all former Summer Olympic cities - from Berlin, where the torch relay was introduced in 1936, to Sydney, Australia. The torch will be in the United States June 16-19 - in Los Angeles, St. Louis, Atlanta and New York. More than 3,600 torchbearers will carry the flame for 78 days outside Greece, covering about 48,500 miles.

A group of Indians protested the arrival in Calgary of the Olympic flame, which had been carried by 7,000 Canadians across the country for 88 days. The tiny band of Lubicon Lake Indians, from northern Alberta, took the moment to make a protest against the Canadian government on the world stage. The group of about 300 Indians and their white supporters began to chant "Share the shame" - a bitter takeoff on the torch relay's motto, "Share the flame" - as Hans Macey of Calgary, dressed in the official red and white running suit of the torch bearers, carried the flame.

"Go, Eric, go!" That's what lawyer Eric D. Ashton said he expected to hear from about 30 friends and relatives as he carries the Olympic torch along the West River Drive tonight. "They also said they were going to yell, 'Don't drop it,' " laughed Ashton, one of 50 "Community Heroes" selected to carry the torch when it passes through the Philadelphia area tonight and tomorrow. Selected by the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, the torchbearers are people who exemplify the spirit of volunteerism in their communities, such as the former beauty queen who works with breast-cancer survivors, the police captain who remodels houses for the poor, the retiree who helps senior citizens prepare their taxes, and the bank vice president who is a volunteer firefighter.

Her dream is to row in the Olympics. Twice she has come so close - only to be named an alternate. She has invested eight years of her life in this quest. Now she is 30, a high school crew coach working for her ex-boyfriend. Sparks still fly between them, yet the Olympic flame still flickers. What now? Such is the predicament of Abi Brooks, the protagonist in Backwards , an independent film being shot in and around Philadelphia, especially Boathouse Row, the epicenter of the city's rowing culture.

From hand to hand, it is passing from village to town to city, little more than a flicker of yellow-red flame - the Olympic torch. As it passes the crossroads and curbsides of America, people cheer, some cry, all are moved. The Olympic flame is a symbol of our connectedness with our neighbors, next door and around the globe. At a time when cynicism and selfishness appear in vogue, there is a refreshing sense of wonderment and joy as the torch broaches the crest of a hill and floats into town.

Nylander demoted The Washington Capitals sent high-salaried forward Michael Nylander to the minor-league Grand Rapids Griffins on loan yesterday, ridding the team of a $4.875 million salary. Nylander, the team's premier free-agent acquisition in 2007, had not been activated for any of this season's first 33 games. "It was just playing style," said general manager George McPhee. "It just didn't work out. For lots of reasons, players excel in one place and don't in another.

At the 1988 Summer Olympic Games, Greg Louganis won a diving gold medal when, under excruciating pressure, he performed a reverse-2 1/2 somersault, one day after he had badly missed the same dive, gashing his head on a springboard. But the Olympic champion says that wasn't the most pressure-packed moment of his life. No, he says, that honor goes to the "terrifying" moment on Thursday in St. Louis when he told a stunned crowd of 1,000 Olympic Festival athletes and corporate sponsors that he is gay. Why did this splendid and respected athlete, an embodiment of the Olympic ideal, go through the ordeal of publicly discussing his sexual orientation?

Twentieth Century Fox and Showtime have dropped made-for-TV movie projects on the Olympic bribery scandal. Both scripts showed a dark, humorous side of Olympic bidding, using the vote-buying scandal that unfolded after Salt Lake won the 2002 Winter Games. The networks ordered scripts a year ago, hoping to release the movies just before the Games begin in February. Executives said the projects were dropped because of cutbacks forced by declining TV advertising revenue and a shift in American entertainment values since the Sept.

Gil Hanse has spent nearly 20 years keeping a low profile heading a small Chester County golf course architecture company. He liked that his course designs spoke for him. He liked being on a bulldozer moving ground at a project while listening to the Grateful Dead or Dave Matthews more than being recognized in a crowd. But Hanse's cover has been blown. The Rio 2016 Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games selected Hanse Golf Course Design to create the layout where men and women will participate in the first golf competition at the Olympic Games since 1904.

Gil Hanse has spent nearly 20 years keeping a low profile heading a small Chester County golf course architecture company. He liked that his course designs spoke for him. He liked being on a bulldozer moving ground at a project while listening to the Grateful Dead or Dave Matthews more than being recognized in a crowd. But Hanse's cover has been blown. The Rio 2016 Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games selected Hanse Golf Course Design to create the layout where men and women will participate in the first golf competition at the Olympic Games since 1904.

Schoolchildren, charity fund-raisers, war veterans, and a centenarian are among 8,000 people who will carry the Olympic flame in the torch relay for the 2012 London Games. London Games officials unveiled a street-by-street map of the 8,000-mile route, which begins at Land's End - the westernmost tip of England - on May 19 and includes a stop in Dublin, Ireland. After human rights protests disrupted the international torch route before the 2008 Beijing Games, the International Olympic Committee ruled that torch relays should be confined to host countries.

Her dream is to row in the Olympics. Twice she has come so close - only to be named an alternate. She has invested eight years of her life in this quest. Now she is 30, a high school crew coach working for her ex-boyfriend. Sparks still fly between them, yet the Olympic flame still flickers. What now? Such is the predicament of Abi Brooks, the protagonist in Backwards , an independent film being shot in and around Philadelphia, especially Boathouse Row, the epicenter of the city's rowing culture.

The designer of the crash-plagued Whistler Sliding Center track in British Columbia said there was never any pressure from Olympic organizers to make the circuit as fast as possible. "No, not at all, in no shape or form," veteran track designer Ugo Gurgel said in a telephone interview yesterday with the Associated Press in Berlin. Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed when his sled flew off the track at speeds nearing 90 mph during a training run just hours before the Olympic flame was lit. After an investigation by local authorities, officials of the Vancouver Organizing Committee and International Luge Federation blamed the fatal crash on human error.

Nylander demoted The Washington Capitals sent high-salaried forward Michael Nylander to the minor-league Grand Rapids Griffins on loan yesterday, ridding the team of a $4.875 million salary. Nylander, the team's premier free-agent acquisition in 2007, had not been activated for any of this season's first 33 games. "It was just playing style," said general manager George McPhee. "It just didn't work out. For lots of reasons, players excel in one place and don't in another.

SILENT GESTURE, that's what Tommie Smith had in mind when his wife bought the black gloves in Mexico City. Then he won the 200-meter race at the 1968 Olympics and he slithered his hand into the right glove and handed the left glove to John Carlos, who had finished third. Silent gesture, indeed. No punches thrown, no bullets fired, no blood shed. Kaboom! Only trigger-quick punishment and the mushroom cloud of controversy and bitterness and anger that hovers to this day. Two black athletes on the victory stand, shoeless, a clenched fist thrust into the Mexico City dusk, heads down while the anthem played.

China didn't just walk onto the world stage, it soared over it. In its long-awaited role as Olympic host, China opened the Summer Games in spectacular fashion yesterday with an extravaganza of fireworks and pageantry dramatizing its ascendance as a global power. Disasters, environmental problems and human-rights disputes preceded the games, but for one evening, at least for the 91,000 people packed into the National Stadium, it was an interlude of fervor and magic, capped by the spellbinding sight of a skywalking, torchbearing gymnast floating around the stadium's top rim before sending a torrent of fire upward to light the Olympic flame.

Torchbearers carried the Olympic flame on the final relay of its long and sometimes contentious global tour today, greeted by rapturous crowds in the Chinese capital two days before it officially launches the Summer Games. The arrival of the torch in the capital marks one of the concluding steps in China's seven years of preparations for the Olympics that have cost billions of dollars, and one which Beijing hopes will serve as the country's symbolic debut as a modern world power.

Chinese officials say they are tackling the Olympian problem of product piracy, and in one area, they have made noticeable headway: Very few vendors in China sell fake trinkets, T-shirts or knickknacks related to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. Markets here brim with phony Gucci handbags, bogus Burberry coats, knockoff Nikes, and pirated DVDs of Hollywood blockbusters. But vendors who hawk pirated Olympics merchandise do so furtively. Authorities offer a simple, if not entirely plausible, explanation.

Fast-changing events, including regional protests and the surge of rioting across the Muslim world, have complicated the task of protecting the Winter Games in Turin, Italy. The host city's police chief still believes security plans are flexible and thorough enough to avert serious problems. Rodolfo Poli, a veteran of Italy's long-running battle against domestic terrorist groups such as the Red Brigades, said authorities are bracing for attempts by leftist and antiglobalization protesters to stage attention-getting disruptions of the games as they get under way tomorrow.