‘The Flame Was Not Put Out,’ Claims Olympic Torch Designer

By Steve Delahoyde on August 18, 2008 5:01 AM

Perhaps nipping the next big Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies controversy in the bud before it balloons into something along the lines of the “not cute girl” and the “fake fireworks” of late, the designer of the final torch used to light the Olympic flame, Huang Qijun, has announced that, while you may have thought that you saw the torch go out just before the big one was lit, you simply couldn’t see that the flame was still lit internally and everything was fine, with no trickery at all.

“The flame was not put out — it was just burning inside the torch and wasn’t visible to the audience,” said chief torch designer Huang Qijun, revealing the secrets of the design in Friday’s Beijing News.

It was designed to allow the flame to be seen when the bearer held up the torch at a 30-degree angle.

“At the opening ceremony, it took a few seconds for Li to make the right pose. That’s why the flame seemed to go out,” he said.

Uh huh. We’d love to take your word for it, but this opening ceremony doesn’t have the greatest track record going for it. Anyway, elsewhere in Olympic designery, the Washington Post‘s Richard K. Lewis has an interesting piece up, asking why NBC never talks about who designed all of these stadiums their broadcasters are always showing footage of and talking about in between matches, despite, like in all sporting events, desperately needing filler to avoid dead air. Lewis’ determination: Americans could care less about design, so no one bothers talking about it. Hmm.