In Quest Of The Olympic Spirit: The Olympic Flame Over Maracana

The term ‘Olympic Stadium’ designates a very distinct feature of real estate: it is a sports venue dedicated to the Olympic Games. More specifically, the Olympic Stadium is considered the ‘crown jewel’ of a host city’s Olympic installations, as this is the venue where, traditionally, the opening  ceremony take place. Thus, the celebratory commencement event simultaneously functions as the brilliant inauguration of the venue itself. This is the reason why most Olympic Stadiums become identified with such celebrations for generations to come.

The Committee for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games has decided against the construction of a new Olympic Stadium. Nevertheless, this evening’s opening ceremony of the twenty-eighth Olympic Games will occur at Maracana, an athletic venue with a long-standing reputation.

For most people, the term Olympic Venue is predominantly associated with the notion of the Olympic Stadium. The word stadium derives from the Ancient Greek word stadion which denotes a unit of length, based on the stretch of the race track in Ancient Olympia, birthplace, and permanent host of the Ancient Olympic Games from 776 BC to 393 AD.

The modern Olympic Stadium is an outdoor venue characterized by the oval racing track, dedicated to running events, which encloses the jumping and throwing fields (the three categories of sports events performed during the Ancient Olympic Games). These classical areas of sports became the initial core of the 1896 revival of the Modern Games). It is within this type of venue that Olympic opening ceremony occurs.

The program of such  celebrations is usually launched with an extravaganza spectacle, associated with the history or the nature of the culture of the host city. This spectacle builds up momentum for the  evening’s main event, the presentation of the competing athletes to the public.

Following the Greek team, which by protocol leads the parade - as a special tribute to the land that gave birth to the Olympic Games - national teams march in formation along the track in alphabetical order. The last team to enter the stadium is the one belonging to the hosting country. All teams position themselves in the middle of the stadium, facing the VIP podium, where, among several personalities, various heads of state have come to pay tribute to the athletes. The president of the International Olympic Committee and the head of state of the hosting country address the crowd and the band plays the Olympic anthem.

Excitement mounts as the moment everyone has been waiting for has arrived: an athlete carrying the torch with the Olympic Flame appears at the entrance of the stadium.

This is the same flame that was lit a few months before, in distant Ancient Olympia . Ignited in the exact way it has been for centuries - by the concentration of the sun-rays through glass reflectors - this is the vibrant symbol of the three-thousand-year-long continuity of the Olympic Spirit. It is also a tangible manifestation of the oldest-existing message of peace in the history of humanity. Starting from Olympia, and after having spent its first night on the Athens Acropolis, the Flame begins its long journey across the five continents.It is relayed from and person to person and torch to torch, to spread the hopeful message until it reaches its final destination: the hosting Olympic Stadium. 

Holding the torch that carries the Flame high above his head, the athlete, or athletes (depending on the choice of the staging of the event), completes a round of the track and then climbs the stadium steps to a salient point where a cauldron stands. Then, the athlete lowers his torch and lights up the cauldron, thus marking the official start of the Olympic Games.

Throughout the duration of the Games, the Olympic Flame will be burning in the cauldron of the stadium, a constant reminder to the world of its peaceful mission.  

The overall legacy of the Olympic Games on the host city is further stressed as Olympic Stadiums figure as prominent landmarks in tourist guides. Cities become identified with their Olympic Stadium, long after the Games have gone by.  Thus the design of such venues is usually assigned to leading architects of the world. 

 In the one hundred and twenty years of Modern Olympic Games we find a few such venues that break with Olympic urban tradition.

For instance, two Olympic Stadiums hosted the Games of a different Olympiad than the one for which they had been built.

The 1952 Helsinki Olympics took place in a functionalistic-style stadium,  which was nevertheless initiallly designed and created to host the 1940 Helsinki Games, that had been cancelled by the outbreak of World War II.  In Spain’s Barcelona, the Montjuic stadium  was totally refurbished to hold the ...... People’s Olympiad,  an ‘anti-Olympiad’ of some sort,   that would run in parallel to the 1936 Berlin Games, as a protest against the Nazi regime. Though this revolutionnary project was scuttled by the Spanish Civil War, the abandoned stadium got its opening ceremony with a vengeance, in 1992, with the very successful Barcelona Olympics. 

The exception to the one-Olympic-use rule is the Los Angele Memorial Coliseum,  the only venue to have hosted Olympic Games twice,in 1932 and 1984. It proudly still bears the Olympic cauldron while displaying above its entrance colonnade the Olympic symbol-  five circles of different color symbolizing the five continents.

By barring the use of federal funds to finance Olympic installations, the Australian government  forced the state of Victoria to renounce on the construction of an Olympic Stadium. Yet, though the Melbourne Cricket Ground had been standing since the mid-1860s, it was gutted ,reconstructed , enlarged and transformed into a new stadium to host the 1956 Melbourne Games. Its capacity expanded to 120,000 spectators, it remains to this day the largest stadium in the Southern Hemisphere

The second Modern Olympic Games became the most threatening for the existence of theOlympic Stadium.

The 1900 Paris Games became incorporated within the larger frame of the ‘1900 Paris Universal Exhibition’, a colossal event promoting the celebration of the technological achievement of the past century and the acceleration of development into the next one. With jaw-gaping presentations of elevators, rolling escalators and advanced photography, technology reigned supreme across the Fair. The Paris Olympic Games had been  reduced to a complimentary side-show of the larger Exhibition. They represented the revival of an ancient ideal,  as a vehicle to further enhance the importance of this brand new world of modernism. Limiting the Games to a simplistic avant-garde concept, while disregarding their athletic dimension, these became the only Games in Olympic history that did not take place in a real stadium.  In truth, track and field competitions of 1900 occurred on the grass of the prestigious Racing Club, a space dedicated to football matches. Nevertheless, the Paris Olympiad is the one that left the longest-standing legacy on a hosting city, forever changing the face of Paris. The French government allocated the funds for the construction of an Olympic Stadium for the redevelopment of the Champs Elysees, thus setting in motion the landscaping of the world’s glitziest boulevard.

It is along such lines, that the of State Rio de Janeiro focused on the city’s future prosperity, giving priority to matters of infrastructure and the redevelopment over urban landscapin

The post-war London Olympics also come close to the adopted approach of the State of Rio de Janeiro: 

Known also as the ’Austerity Games ’, the 1948 London Olympics were the only ones not boasting a new Olympic stadium.  In a London still bearing the scars of heavy World War II bombings, construction of a sports venue on such grand scale was considered unethical. Nevertheless, King George VI insisted on hosting the Games, considering them a necessity not only for the boosting of the morale of his people but also for the spreading of the Olympic message of peace, after five years of devastating warfare. The events took place at Wembley Stadium, which, to this day, remains Europe’s most famous football venue. Despite all austerity measures, the 1948 Games concentrated on the uplifting of spirits and were considered very successful.

Bearing in mind the London example the organizers of the 2016 Rio Olympic games decided to forego the construction of a new Olympic Stadium. Leonardo Espindola, Chief Secretary of State for the Executive Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro explains: 

“The State of Rio de Janeiro has been very cautious in regard to the funding and future use of Olympic Venues. While some installations such as the tennis courts and the velodrome (which is unique in Southern America) will retain their use others, such as the handball venue, for instance, will be transformed into a school to benefit the community. With the avoidance of excessive public spending in mind, the construction of Olympic  Venues has been assigned mostly to the private sector. Developers have assumed the cost of building the facilities and in return have been given redevelopment rights on the land once the Games are over. This approach has helped us economize over $ 9,3 billion.”

The 2016 athletic events will be taking place at the Engenhao stadium which was built for the 2007 Pan-American Games and has been fully refurbished for the occasion. The venue will also host, later on in the year, the Summer Paralympics.

The opening ceremony, however, is reserved for a venue of a totally different caliber.

Olympic Stadiums, above all, are haunted by historical moments and the athletes that brought them about. Thus the aura of Jesse Owens still floats about the Roman-like stadium of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Mexico City  will always remember the 1968 Games when Bob Beamon performed in the long jump what  is referred to as “The Leap of the Century” as he flew across the stadium, landing two whole feet beyond the measure set by the last world record. The Athens 2004 Calatrava stadium will always retain the energy of Russia’s gravity-defying Yelena Isibayeva , suavely pole vaulting over the bar, giving the audience an out-of-body experience.

“Our decision was to produce the opening and closing ceremonies in a venue that is already charged with this kind of energy. To attest the marriage of football- our national sport- with the Olympic Games” - Mr. Espindola continues. 

The name Maracana is synonymous with football. Ever since its inauguration in 1950, it has hosted some of the most important finals of world cups. The great tenor Luciano Pavarotti whose recording of Nessun Dorma became the unofficial anthem of the World Cup once said that a most moving moment in his life was attending a match at Maracana, in between concerts in Rio de Janeiro. 

“Maracana is to football what Carnegie Hall is to music.” - Luciano Pavarotti

Just like its Olympic counterparts, the Maracana has created its own mythical hero who has been haunting the place for generations to come.In the case of this South American stadium, its legend is still very much alive. At seventy-six, Ernesto Arantes do Nascimento is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations. His illustrious career has earned him the International Peace Award.Known to the world as Pele he placed Maracana at the center of world attention  when he scored his 1000th goal within its walls. By writing sports history he inextricably sealed his fate with that of the venue.

Pele is the quintessential football player of all times. An athlete who pushed boundaries beyond any conceivable limit. A great advocate of peace in the world. A man who, despite never having taken part in the Olympic Games, has become a truly Olympian icon. A humble man who, during the relay of the Olympic Flame, in the 2004 Athens Olympics, was overcome by emotion and burst into tears.

Having witnessed this moment, Maria Hors, the personality responsible for the lighting of the Olympic Flame in Ancient Olympia had then commented:

“Seeing the greatest athlete in the world weep upon coming into contact with the Flame, brought out the noble purity of it all. I suddenly felt so happy  and justified for having devoted more than seventy years of my life to the service of the Olympic Spirit.”

Recovering from hip surgery, Pele will not be attending this evening’s opening ceremony. Still, his presence is bound to be felt throughout the stadium.

Mr. Espindola concludes:

“Only days ago I myself was a torchbearer running in my hometown. I couldn’t believe the excitement that the Flame generated to the bystanders.Just imagine the moment when it will enter Maracana. The combination of football and the Olympic Spirit.” 

In breaking with tradition, Rio de Janeiro is boldly taking the Olympic Flame to thrills never before experienced.

But then, what could be more in agreement with the Olympic Spirit? 

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