MOSCOW, November 12 (R-Sport) - After a spate of snuffed-out torches, there is no chance of the Olympic flame going out during competition at next year’s Winter Games in Sochi, a Russian minister said Tuesday.
The record 65,000-kilometer torch relay for Russia’s first Winter Olympics has been marred by occasional instances of the torch going out, including once at the Kremlin.
There will be enough fuel in reserve to ensure the cauldron at the Fisht Olympic Stadium burns brightly throughout the February 7-23 Games, said Deputy Energy Minister Andrei Cherezov, whose brief covers the Olympics’ power needs.
“The flame won’t go out,” he said, adding that there would be more than three times as much energy in reserve at the stadium than the structure needed.
“We will provide trouble-free operations at the stadium for the opening and the closing,” he said.
The torch relay is in its 37th day and has reached the remote Avachinsky Volcano in the Far Eastern Kamchatka peninsula. On Saturday, an unlit torch was passed between two Russian cosmonauts in open space, the first time that feat has ever been achieved.
