People say flame when they mean torch, and torch when they mean flame, and most of the time nobody minds. They are different things, though, and the relay depends on the difference. The flame is the fire itself, a single continuous fire kindled at Olympia, Greece, in the months before each Games. The torch is the vessel, one of thousands manufactured for each relay, that carries the flame for a few minutes at a time. The cauldron is the fixed vessel that holds the flame for the duration of the Games.
The Flame: One Fire, Lit by the Sun
Every Olympic flame begins at the ruins of the Temple of Hera in ancient Olympia. An actress playing a high priestess holds a torch at the focal point of a parabolic mirror, a curved dish that concentrates sunlight into a single hot spot, until the torch ignites. No match or lighter is used. If clouds ruin the ceremony, organizers use a backup flame kindled the same way at rehearsal, which is what happened for Paris 2024.
Each torch after that is lit from the one before it, hand to hand, for months. The fire a torchbearer holds up in Santa Monica or Sapporo is, by unbroken custody, the fire the sun started in Greece.
The Torch: A Vessel Built by the Thousands
The torch in a runner's hand is hardware. Inside the shell sits a fuel canister and a burner engineered to survive wind, rain, and cold; more on that in design and manufacturing.
How many get built varies by Games. London 2012 manufactured 8,000 torches, one for every torchbearer, each pierced with 8,000 laser-cut holes to honor them. Paris 2024 produced about 2,000 recycled-steel torches for more than 10,000 torchbearers, so runners handed shared torches down the line. A torch can be replaced. The flame can't.
The Cauldron: Where the Flame Lives During the Games
At the opening ceremony, the final torchbearer lights the cauldron, and the flame stays there until it is extinguished at the closing ceremony, about two weeks later.
At Paris 2024, the cauldron that rose over the Tuileries garden under a balloon held no fire at all: its "flame" was LED light and water mist, built for safety and emissions. The real Olympic flame burned beside it in a lantern behind armored glass.
The Lanterns That Guarantee Continuity
At the lighting ceremony in Olympia, officials also light several miners' safety lamps from the new flame. These lanterns ride in the escort vehicles for the entire relay, and when the flame crosses an ocean, it flies as a lantern, secured and attended. Most spectators never see them.
Torches go out on the road all the time, and a handler relights them from a lantern, never from a match. In 1976, after rain doused the Montreal cauldron and a well-meaning official relit it with his cigarette lighter, organizers put his fire out and relit it from a backup of the original flame. That chain of custody is why the flame never really goes out.
Quick Answers
Is the Olympic flame ever allowed to go out?
Individual torches fail all the time. The flame survives in the backup lanterns and is relit from them, so the chain back to Olympia stays unbroken. The flame is only deliberately extinguished at the closing ceremony.
How many Olympic torches are made for each Games?
It varies a lot. Helsinki 1952 made just 22. London 2012 made 8,000, one per torchbearer. Paris 2024 made about 2,000 for more than 10,000 torchbearers.
Do torchbearers keep their torches?
Often, yes. Many recent Games have offered torchbearers the chance to purchase the torch they carried, and there is a real collector market for the rest. I wrote a full guide on buying an Olympic torch.
What is the difference between the torch and the cauldron?
Both are vessels for the same flame. The torch travels, passed between thousands of hands. The cauldron stays put, holding the flame for the length of the Games.
In 2028 the flame will travel through all 50 states on its way to Los Angeles, in thousands of torches and a few lanterns. I am campaigning to carry one of those torches through Santa Monica, where I live and train. If you'd back a runner who has been training for this his whole life, nominate me here.
