Once there, the torch will be carried to the station's various modules and on Saturday, November 9th, taken on a spacewalk by cosmonauts Oleg Kotov andSergei Ryazanskiy. The astronauts will time their excursion such that the space station is flying over Russia so that videos and photos of the torch will featureSochi, the venue of the 2014 Winter Olympics in the background. To ensure the safety of the astronauts and conserve the limited oxygen supply, the torch will not be lit at anytime during this expedition.
And while this may be amongst the most exciting excursions that the Sochi Olympic torch will take, it is not the only one. Last month, it traveled to the North Pole aboard a Russian nuclear powered icebreaker. Later this month, it will head to the bottom of Lake Balkai, the world's deepest lake and before it all comes to an end on February 2014, even make its way to the peak of Mount Elbrus - The highest mountain on the European continent.
The ritual of lighting a flame with a torch to mark the beginning of the Olympic games was started by the Greek in 776 B.C. when the first games were held at Olympia and continued until they came to a halt, about a thousand years later. However, it did not start immediately when the modern Olympics was born inAthens in 1896. In fact, it took 32 years before the cauldron was finally lit at the 1928 Amsterdam games and another 8 before the first torch relay was conducted for the 1938 Berlin Games. In 1952, Norway staged the first torch relay for the Winter Games and started a new tradition.
Listen to the Article:
No comments:
Post a Comment