Word: torch
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...real estate crisis has led to a surge in arson across the country; incidents of arson have been fairly constant over the years nationwide, according to the National Fire Prevention Association. Still, officials here and elsewhere have been concerned that more owners of foreclosed properties would torch their homes to collect insurance money. Even this city's suburban residents, in past years, have driven cars they could no longer afford into the city, and torched them for insurance purposes...
...wake of World War II, the relay took on more peaceful overtones. For the 1948 Summer Games in London, the relay's first runner, a Greek army corporal, symbolically removed his military uniform before setting off. Four years later, the first torch relay for Oslo's Winter Olympics started in Morgedal, Norway, the birthplace of skiing pioneer Sondre Norheim. That relay also featured the torch's first trip in an airplane. (For the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, the torch got an upgrade, flying from Athens to Paris on the famed Concorde...
Host countries often construct an itinerary for the torch relay that showcases points of national pride. On its way to Mexico City in 1968, the torch retraced Christopher Columbus' path to the New World; one of its pit stops was at the Great Pyramid of the Moon in Teotihuacan, where it was incorporated into an Aztec fire ceremony. For the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, torchbearers donned traditional Korean clothing to celebrate the nation's heritage. Twelve years later, on the way to Sydney, an Aboriginal field -hockey star kicked off the domestic...
Runners are the torch's primary means of transportation, though in recent years the flame has also been carried by boat (Mexico City, 1968; Barcelona, 1992; Atlanta, 1996), horseback (Stockholm, 1956; Atlanta), parachute (Lillehammer, Norway, 1994), snowmobile (Calgary, Canada, 1988) and camel (Sydney, 2000). During its journey to the Atlanta Olympics, astronauts took the torch (though not the flame) into space; a few years later, it dove into the waters of the Great Barrier Reef on its way to Sydney...
...Vancouver, the relay will wind through Greece until Oct. 29, when it will be flown to Canada to begin a laborious 106-day tour across the nation. The torch will be carried by such methods as dogsled, snowmobile, horse and plane. It's a safe bet that the journey will court far less controversy than its Chinese predecessor did. That said, the torch itself has raised some eyebrows. Some observers say the elegantly sculpted white staff bears an unfortunate resemblance to a hand-rolled sample of British Columbia's biggest cash crop. "I'm sure...