UK - OLYMPICS 2012: Flame lit on Mount Olympus lights Olympic torch on British soil.
Record ID:
330754
UK - OLYMPICS 2012: Flame lit on Mount Olympus lights Olympic torch on British soil.
- Title: UK - OLYMPICS 2012: Flame lit on Mount Olympus lights Olympic torch on British soil.
- Date: 19th May 2012
- Summary: ***Music heard SOT*** MARCHING BAND AWAY
- Embargoed: 3rd June 2012 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: United Kingdom
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: Sports
- Reuters ID: LVA6HT8ZJO9I0S279VLDY5XOOFU8
- Story Text: The Olympic flame landed at an airstrip on the south-western tip of England on Friday (May 18) carried in an especially painted British Airways jetplane.
Invited spectators waved flags and cheered as "The Firefly" touched down and taxiied alongside them.
A delegation composed of Princess Anne, president of the British Olympic Association, David Beckham and chairman of LOCOG Sebastian Coe carried the flame, enclosed in a safety lamp, down the aircraft steps. Then Beckham lit an Olympic torch from the flame in the lamp, and in turn lit an Olympic cauldron.
Arouind eight thousand people will run with the Olympic torch flame during the next 70 days as the torch is processed around Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Beckham, who has been involved in Olympic delegations since 2005 and has hopes of captaining a British team in the Olympic soccer tournament, said that the torch procession should signal that the London Olympics are starting soon.
"I think people seeing the flame arriving in the country, I think it's going to light people up literally you know. I think the fact that now it's going to be taken all around the country by 8,000 torch bearers you know, that's a special moment for the people and for the country so - the excitement begins," he said.
Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister, was in attendance while Prime Minister David Cameron is in the United States.
Clegg recalled that the last time the Olympic Games was held in Britain was in 1948.
"The torch is going to crisscross the country for 70 days it's going to be within a very close distance of the vast, vast, vast majority of people in the country. Remember the last time that the torch landed on British soil was over 60 years ago when it landed on a Dover beach having crossed a war-torn Europe and that time actually it rained so heavily the torch went out, hasn't happened so far so I think the omens are very good," he said.
The Olympic Games start on July 27. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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