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Event Information:
The
Summer Olympics torch relay is
in progress, running from 19 May –
27 July , prior to the
Summer Olympics. The torch bearer
selection process was announced on
18 May, . The traditional
lighting ceremony took place on 10
May at the Temple of Hera,
Olympia, home of the Ancient Olympic
Games. The torch relay travelled
around Greece, and arriving at the
Panathinaiko Stadium, in Athens on
17 May for the handover ceremony.
The
torch relay will last 70 days, with
66 evening celebrations, six island
visits with about 8,000 people
carrying the torch a total distance
of about 8,000 miles (12,800 km),
starting from Land's End in
Cornwall. The torch will have one
day outside of the United Kingdom
when it will visit Dublin on 6 June.
The relay will focus on national
heritage sites, locations with
sporting significance, key sporting
events, schools registered with the
Get Set School Network, green spaces
and biodiversity, Live Sites (city
locations with large screens),
festivals and other events.
On
water, the torch will ride in a
power boat in Bristol Harbour and in
an RNLI lifeboat along the Menai
Strait. Slower journeys will occur
by ferry on the Mersey Ferry and by
the steam boat MV Tern across
Windermere. In unpowered watercraft,
it will be punted along the River
Cam in Cambridge, and rowed along
the River Medway in Maidstone.
On
rails the torch will be hauled by
steam locomotives over various
gauges. The LMS Royal Scot Class
locomotive No. 6115 Scots Guardsman
will convey the torch on the
mainline railway along the East
Coast Main Line. Trips will also be
taken on standard gauge heritage
railways at the Great Central
Railway, the North York Moors
Railway and the Severn Valley
Railway On smaller gauges, the torch
will visit the narrow gauge
Ffestiniog Railway and a miniature
railway in the form of the
Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway. It
will be taken up gradients by
funicular railways on the
Aberystwyth Cliff Railway, the
Hastings East Hill Cliff Railway,
and Great Orme Tramway, as well as
the narrow gauge rack railway of the
Snowdon Mountain Railway. Electric
trams will carry the torch on the
Blackpool tramway and Manx Electric
Railway.
Using
road vehicles, the torch will
complete eighty percent of its tour
of Britain in a security van. A road
train will be used in the Mumbles in
Swansea and it will ride on an open
top bus through the Cumbrian
countryside. The torch will be
transported on three wheels by a TT
motorcycle sidecar on the Isle of
Man, by a Paralympic road cycle
around the Brands Hatch motor racing
circuit and by mountain bike at the
Hadleigh Farm course in Essex.
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