Bookmakers ask burning question: Who will light the 2012 Olympic cauldron?

[richard]

It’s the burning question of the London 2012 Olympics. "Who will, or who should, light the cauldron for the 2012 Games?"

With six months to go until the opening ceremony, British bookmakers are taking floods of bets on the issue, while fans, athletes, media and the public at large are speculating on who will get the honour.

Five-time rowing gold medalist Steve Redgrave is the big favorite with the bookies, with British Olympians Kelly Holmes, Daley Thompson and Tom Daley also in the mix. Football icon David Beckham, 4-minute miler Roger Bannister, middle-distance great Sebastian Coe and even Queen Elizabeth II are among other names being mentioned.

The identity of the final torchbearer is always meant to be a closely guarded secret, so the uncertainty will go on right up until the flame is ignited on the evening of July 27.

The 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium is packed for the ceremony masterminded by Danny Boyle, Oscar-winning director of “Slumdog Millionaire.” Billions of people around the world are watching on television. Various musicians, singers and dancers have entertained the crowd.

Athletes from more than 200 countries have marched into the stadium and taken their assigned places. Queen Elizabeth II has declared the games open. The Olympic anthem has been played and the Olympic flag raised.

The Olympic torch, taken by boat down the River Thames to the Olympic Park, is carried into the stadium by the last group of relay runners.

The suspense and tension mounts.

Finally, someone – who? – takes the torch and lights the cauldron that will burn for the next 17 days.

In a tradition that started with the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the transfer of the flame to the cauldron symbolizes the start of the Olympic games and often stands out as the defining moment of the opening ceremony.

“Depending on how they set it up and who it is in the end, it can be great,” senior International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound of Canada said. “For London, it should be somebody who in his or her own way defines Britain and sporting traditions.”

The flame will arrive in Britain from Greece on May 19, heralding the beginning of a 70-day, 8,000-mile (12,900-kilometer) relay around the U.K. that will culminate with the ceremony in London.

Coe, chairman of the 2012 organizing committee, said no decisions have yet been made about the lighting.

“It will be decided by, almost certainly our creative teams, and there’ll be discussions but we’re not anywhere near,” he said Thursday. “I can tell you we haven’t even begun to get to that granularity of detail.”

Some lightings are more memorable than others.

“It’s always a dramatic moment and yet most people don’t remember who lit the cauldron in 2008,” Olympic historian David Wallechinsky said. “They may remember Muhammad Ali, but often it’s of minor significance in the long run.”

Who can forget Ali, trembling from Parkinson’s, holding the torch aloft in his right hand for several breathtaking seconds before lighting the flame for the 1996 Atlanta Games?

Now, 64 years later, Redgrave is the overwhelming favorite – 1-2 with Ladbrokes and 8-13 with William Hill.

Britain’s most decorated Olympian, Redgrave won gold medals at five consecutive games from 1984 to 2000 and was knighted by the queen in 2001.

Second favorite with the bookies is Holmes, winner of the 800 and 1,500 meters at the 2004 Athens Olympics. She’s 7-1 with Ladbrokes and 5-1 with William Hill.

Teenage diver – and leading medal hope – Daley is also at 7-1 with Ladbrokes, followed by four-time cycling gold medalist Chris Hoy, former decathlon champion Thompson and Coe. Beckham and the Queen Elizabeth are at 25-1.

Thompson, who won the decathlon at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics, is a colorful and sometimes irreverent figure. Coe gave him a plug last year, telling the Daily Telegraph: “I genuinely believe he is the greatest Olympian we have delivered.”

Coe downplays his own chances.

“I’ve made it very clear I have massive duties around the times of the games,” he told AP Thursday.

A strong case could be made for Bannister, the first man to break the 4-minute barrier for the mile. Bannister ran in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, finishing a disappointing fourth in the 1,500 meters. Two years later, he ran the magic time that still stands as one of the greatest sporting achievements of the 20th century. He turns 83 in March.

“If there’s some real icon in British sport, if it were Roger Bannister or someone like that, it could be spectacular,” Pound said.

Some or all of the top contenders could be involved in the final legs of the torch relay.

Janie Hampton, author of “The Austerity Olympics – When the Games to London in 1948,” has a more glamorous choice: Kate Middleton, the wife of Prince William. “My prediction for the 2012 Games is that the final torchbearer will be the Duchess of Cambridge, wearing a slinky see-through lace frock,” she said. “She is popular, beautiful and can presumably run once round a stadium with one arm in the air.”


Source
Associated Press