An Olympic torch has to look good while on fire in wind, rain and freezing cold. It has to be light enough for a child or a great-grandmother to carry at a jog, cool enough at the grip that an untrained stranger cannot get hurt, and reliable enough that it will not embarrass a nation on live television. Then it has to be built by the thousand.
Some country's designers take on that brief every two years.
The Relay Is Younger Than It Looks
The ancient Games kept sacred flames burning at Olympia's altars, and torch races were real events elsewhere in ancient Greece, but the ancient Olympics had no torch relay. The relay debuted at Berlin in 1936, championed by German organizer Carl Diem, with polished steel torches produced by Krupp. Every Games since has kept the ritual and redesigned the object, so the torch has been reinvented from scratch, in public, roughly forty times.
Every Torch Reflects Its Host
Los Angeles 1984 chose craftsmanship over flash: an aluminum body with an antique brass finish and a leather-wrapped handle, the Coliseum's peristyle engraved beneath the Olympic motto. It came from Turner Industries of Sycamore, Illinois, a firm that had been making torches since the 1890s, under design engineer Gilbert Farnham.
Rio 2016 held a national competition, chose the Sao Paulo studio Chelles & Hayashi from a field of 76 agencies, and got a torch that physically opens: recycled aluminum and resin segments expand to reveal bands of color for the sky, the mountains, the sea, and the Copacabana promenade. About 12,000 were made.
Tokyo 2020 commissioned designer Tokujin Yoshioka, who shaped the torch like a five-petal cherry blossom and formed it partly from aluminum recycled out of temporary housing built after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Milano Cortina 2026 produced Essential, Carlo Ratti's 1,060-gram open-frame torch that shows you its own burner, refillable so that one torch could serve up to ten torchbearers. Full details in inside the 2026 Olympic torch.
The Fuel Changes First
For decades the fuel was pressurized gas. The 1984 Los Angeles torch ran on propane, which is predictable and easy to regulate through a valve.
Then fuel became a climate statement. Tokyo 2020 introduced hydrogen, including the first hydrogen-fed Olympic cauldron, with water as the main byproduct of the burn. Beijing 2022's torch burned hydrogen as well. Milano Cortina 2026 chose bio-LPG refined in Sicily from used cooking oil, animal fats and agricultural residues.
Whatever fuels the LA28 torch will be read as a statement about America's energy story in 2028.
Built So a Failure Doesn't Matter
Wind will put out a torch flame eventually. The engineering goal is to make any single failure meaningless. Modern torches are tested against wind, rain and cold long before the first leg is run, with burners built to hold a steady flame and relight cleanly. Behind every torch, the mother flame from Olympia travels beside the runners in lanterns, ready to relight any torch that gives out. That is why the Olympic flame never goes out.
The hard part is the handle. Combustion happens inches above a grip held by torchbearers with zero training, so the thermal design has to work for every hand that will touch it.
The Brief for Los Angeles
As I write this, the LA28 torch does not publicly exist. Its brief is already the hardest in relay history: July heat, coastal wind, desert crossings, and a planned route through all 50 states, the longest reach an Olympic flame has ever attempted.
I am campaigning to carry that torch through Santa Monica, so I have opinions. I hope it borrows from 1984's brass the way a good sequel quotes the original. I hope it uses real materials and a visible flame, built for regular people's hands in all 50 states. If you already know someone who should carry it, nominate them.
