Locals get honor of torch ceremony

Locals get honor of torch ceremony

HIROSHIMA, Japan (Reuter): Two Hiroshima athletes achieved what is likely to be the high point of their sporting careers yesterday -- but it had nothing to do with their speciality events.

The honor of lighting the Asian Games torch went to two local athletes, members of the Japanese squad for the Games, but hardly top stars of the team vying to come second behind China at the event.

The luck of the two athletes, steeplechaser Yasunori Uchitomi and basketball player Aki Ichijo, was to have been born in this western Japanese city.

"We wanted to highlight the local element in the competition and so we decided to have local athletes for the final leg," said a Games official.

The pair were among only ten of Japan's 680 athletes, the biggest contingent at the games, born in Hiroshima.

Uchitomi and Ichijo carried their flames in from opposite ends of the stadium and then climbed to the podium which dominates the Big Arch arena.

In a last-second glitch, the two athletes had touched their torches to the cauldron and had turned away for several seconds to acknowledge the applause before the flame finally burst into life.

Uchitomi, 21, is a student at Hiroshima University of Economics. Ichijo, a 24-year-old member of the Japanese basketball squad, was also born in Hiroshima.

Her greatest sporting achievement thus far was to be a member of the Japanese basketball team which came fourth at the Asian Games in Beijing.

The Asian Games flame was lit on Sept. 7 in Beijing, venue of the last Asian Games, and was transported to Japan two days later.

It was mixed with the peace flame which burns at Hiroshima before being split into two and sent in two relays around the Seto Inland Sea, the area of which Hiroshima is the main city.

Sacred flame

Officials defended the performance of the sacred flame after it seemed reluctant to burst into life.

There was a heart-stopping gap of nearly 10 seconds before the cauldron dominating the Big Arch stadium in Hiroshima was ignited after Uchitomi and Ichijo touched their blazing torches into its bowl.

But organizers said it was not a lapse in Japan's legendary efficiency, but a deliberate ploy to ensure that any low-flying peace doves, which were simultaneously released, would not be fried in the fire.

"At the opening ceremony of the Seoul Olympics, several doves seemed to be enshrouded by the sacred flame as it was lit. We wanted to avoid such a tragedy here in the peace city of Hiroshima," said composer Shigeaki Saegusa, who took part in the ceremony.

"The flame holder was equipped with a safety system, and a small flame burned for about eight seconds to warn nearby doves before the flame burst into life," Saegusa said.

The pro-bird precaution was initially lost on a capacity crowd of 55,400, who thought that Uchitomi and Ichijo had failed in their task as torchbearers.

Games officials said they had given the honor of carrying the torch to the two relatively unknown athletes because of their regional heritage.

"We wanted to highlight the local element in the competition and so we decided to have local athletes for the final leg," an official said.