St. Louis set to welcome Olympic torch

Friday, June 18, 2004

By Cheryl Wittenauer

Associated Press

ST. LOUIS -- A century since becoming the first American city to host the modern-era Olympic games, St. Louis once again is holding the flame.

The torch, on its second stop of a four-city U.S. tour, was to be escorted by charter plane to St. Louis by Mayor Francis Slay, a day after the torch arrived in America and made its way through the Los Angeles area.

St. Louis' day with the small, Athens-bound flame was to begin at the Gateway Arch along the Mississippi River, complete with traditional Greek dancing and appearances by Olympic gymnastic legends Nadia Comenici and Bart Conner.

The torch eventually snakes 34 miles -- in quarter-mile installments by 125 runners -- before arriving at the sprawling green of the city's Forest Park. The route includes a pass by Washington University's Francis Field, rededicated Wednesday as the site of the track-and-field events of the sweltering 1904 Games.

The torch also was to pause at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church to recognize the games' links to Greece, host of this summer's games. Festivities at the church were to include Greek dance and food, even a children's Olympics with olive wreaths and medallions going to the victors.

''Greek-Americans in St. Louis are very proud of the fact that the torch will be passing by the church, and that we have a chance to show our pride and our gratitude to the people of St. Louis,'' said Nick Karakas, a member of the church and head of the local torch-relay committee.

St. Louis' celebration culminates in Forest Park, where the final torchbearer -- Olympic gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee of nearby East St. Louis, Ill. -- will light the Olympic cauldron at the base of Art Hill.

Those ceremonies were to include fireworks, a symphony performance and appearances by other former Olympians, marking the St. Louis area's latest brush with the Athens games. St. Louis hosted the women's marathon trials in April, and last week the U.S. diving trials were held in nearby St. Peters.

The flame is visiting previous U.S. Summer Olympic cities -- St. Louis on Thursday and Atlanta on Friday. It will also be in New York on Saturday and tour Montreal on Sunday before heading overseas again.

The flame's 46,800-mile journey began June 4. It passed through Africa and South America for the first time. The relay will make a final trip around Greece before arriving in Athens for the opening ceremony Aug. 13.

In St. Louis, torchbearers included the young and old, the wealthy and not-so-well-off, the famous and the largely unknown.

Among them: Home-based financial analyst Janice Herold, 57 and paralyzed from the waist down since a 1997 automobile wreck. ''God can take bad things and turn them into good if we let him,'' said Herold, mother to a newly adopted Guatemalan boy who turns 3 on Friday.

Befitting the mantra that torchbearers are ''ordinary people who live extraordinary lives,'' participants also will include Teri Clemens, 48, of the St. Louis suburb of O'Fallon.

Clemens, who coached Washington University's volleyball team to seven national titles, with her husband, has six adopted children -- two from Russia and four found abandoned in St. Louis and Dallas. Clemens quit coaching because of worsening asthma and severe blood complications.

St. Louis' hosting the 1904 Olympic games was part of a memorable year here, where the city also staged the World's Fair and the centennial of Lewis and Clark's departure from this area.

A century ago, the Olympics featured boxing for the first time, along with a spectacle of a marathon that started in the peak of the afternoon broil. That race's apparent winner later confessed he'd ridden a third of the way in a car. Handlers for the runner-up helped him keep his pace by administering a mixture of strychnine sulfate and raw eggs with a brandy chaser.

Finishing fourth was a Cuban mailman who became something of a folk hero. With no strategy, handlers or training program, he ran in a long-sleeved shirt, street shoes and long pants, stopping along the way to practice his English with spectators. He even detoured into an apple orchard to snack.

Those Olympics were said to be thin on global participation, partly because European athletes would have to make a trans-Atlantic voyage, then a long train ride to Missouri.

Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: