Cold flame: Lighting the Olympic Flame hasn't always gone smoothly:

Cold flame

Lighting the Olympic Flame hasn't always gone smoothly:

- The most grisly blunder came in Seoul in 1988 when dozens of doves released earlier in the opening ceremony alighted on the Olympic cauldron. When the flame was lit, several of the birds were caught in the flames to the horror of watching spectators.

- Four years later, Spanish organizers recruited the services of an archer to fire a burning arrow into the cauldron. But the flame had lit automatically as the arrow missed its target, sailing yards wide.

- In 1996, organizers of the Atlanta Olympics recruited the services of boxing legend Muhammad Ali to do the honors. The appearance of the former world heavyweight champion - shaking uncontrollably through Parkinson's syndrome - electrified the fans.

Yet the torch lighting itself was a flop. A pulley used to haul the flame up to the torch bowl was tortuously slow, and to make matters worse the cauldron itself - derided as looking like a carton of McDonalds french fries - burned and blackened during the Games.

Source: www.iafrica.com