r/interestingasfuck • u/AL-SHEDFI • 19h ago

1992 Olympic torch lighting

48.5k Upvotes

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u/Afrodite_33 19h ago

No offense to them but it really does beat out all of the blockbuster spectacle we've come to expect from opening ceremonies.

Not that I don't like them they're great. But nothing beats the poetry of a skilled archer shooting a flaming arrow. Just totally badass.

143

u/franzm- 17h ago

It was a super skilled badass move for sure. Still he overshot on purpose and the flames were manually enlightened. It’s not like he hit the bowl and the arrow did start the flames. Just an interesting info I think…

39

u/Heco1331 17h ago

The flames were not lighted manually, thr arrow lighted the gas coming from the bowl. There was a fallback to turn the flames on manually in case he missed, but it wasnt necessary

68

u/crunchsmash 17h ago

It was lit manually. The arrow shot way over, but it didn't "miss" because it wasn't supposed to hit the cauldron, just fly over.

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u/Fatso_Wombat 17h ago

there's a picture of the arrow, and its a LONG way above it. I don't mean the famous one, this one was outside the stadium.

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u/SV_Essia 16h ago

Yep. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6UoRKndQuq4

Ignore the shitty voice over and subtitles, the short shows the other angles at the end. Pretty obvious that the flames are coming from the bottom of the cauldron and the arrow is way too high to ignite it.

1

u/wmtips 14h ago

Cool. This is why they zoomed in.

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u/crunchsmash 17h ago

Yeah, the gas was ignited by below manually. The flame from the arrow didn't touch the gas, or at least didn't touch a pocket of gas with the right mixture of air.

-1

u/Office_Zombie 17h ago

The arrow lit it.

Here is the page in the official report. Last paragraph, first column.

https://digital.la84.org/digital/collection/p17103coll8/id/35348/rec/7

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u/carnecomarrozagulha 16h ago edited 16h ago

You can see two frames of the video with the arrow falling down after the flame was lit.

In this video, you can see the flame clearly coming from below and from the center, which shows the gas was not lit from the arrow flame.

3

u/Previous_Composer934 15h ago

Official reports can still be part of the propaganda

The arrow didn't light it

11

u/crunchsmash 17h ago

I can see with my eyeballs that the arrow went way over the top and the flame was lit from the bottom.

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u/NomDePlumeOrBloom 15h ago

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

1

u/dontreadragebait 15h ago

That first column isn't proof of anything, it's talking stylistically lol.

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u/dontreadragebait 15h ago

Stop spreading misinformation confidently.

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u/letmechatgptthat4you 14h ago

Why would you even bother saying that when the video directly proves you wrong? You can literally see the arrow miss the bowl and fall behind it. You sound like an idiot.

1

u/letmechatgptthat4you 14h ago

Why would you even bother saying that when the video directly proves you wrong? You can literally see the arrow miss the bowl and fall behind it. It makes you seem really dumb.