COVID-19 precautions have dictated that it will only take the Flame to the three competition zones. It will be almost as short as the first Torch Relay for a Winter Games seventy years ago and is one of the very few things that Beijing 2022 will have in common with Oslo’s Games 70 years ago.

The Olympic Games of 1952 were much smaller in scale. Only 30 countries were represented.

There were only 694 competitors. Women only took part in figure skating, Alpine skiing and cross-country. 

Yet the Games were seen as capturing the Olympic spirit.

Norway had been occupied by the Nazis during the Second World War, but in 1946, a bid for the 1952 edition was proposed. 

The official application said: "The city of Oslo applies for the honour of arranging the Olympic Winter Games of 1952. Oslo has always been the centre of winter sports in Norway.

"It is famous for the record crowds which attend the Holmenkollen ski competitions and the great international skating meets.

"Oslo municipality guarantees the grounds and equipment which the arranging the Winter Games will involve." 

Only 28 International Olympic Committee (IOC) members attended the Session held in Stockholm in May 1947 for the host city election.

Oslo received 18 votes, to defeat the Italian bid from Cortina D’Ampezzo and the Americans in Lake Placid.

It was the first time that a capital city had been chosen to host the Winter Olympics.

Norway’s reputation for winter sports was already well known.

An illustrated coffee table book was published in Norway to mark the coming of the Games.

"With the hope that our unquiet world may live in peace and toleration yet ,the capital of Norway wishes the friends of winter sport in all countries a hearty welcome," the book said.

It paid tribute to the "glowing enthusiasm and warm affection with which the capital will tackle this gigantic task."

The planners had thought of building a new stadium but in the end, organisers decided to upgrade Bislett, a world famous athletics stadium.

"The skating records established here have approached world records so closely, that it seemed entirely justifiable to choose it for the speed skating events," the official report noted.

By this time, the Torch Relay had become an established ritual of the Summer Games.

The Norwegians decided to introduce it for the Winter Games but with a particularly Norwegian flavour.

"This was no Olympic Flame being carried from Morgedal to Oslo, but a Torch greeting from the cradle of modern skiing," organisers said.

The Flame was therefore kindled in Morgedal rather than Ancient Olympia.

There was no great publicity campaign to identify the Torch Bearers who were largely anonymous as they relayed the Flame.

The journey started less than two days before the Opening Ceremony.

This was also held in a subdued manner because only a few days before, the British monarch George VI had died.

King Haakon VII travelled to London with his son for the funeral so the official declaration to open the Olympics was performed by Princess Ragnhild.

When the Games began, speed skating was the big attraction at the Bislett. The home crowd soon had plenty to cheer.

Norway’s Hjalmar "Hjallis" Andersen, who had been the Norwegian flag bearer, brought further honour to the host nation with three gold medals on the open air track.

Later, his statue was erected on the approaches to the stadium, as a permanent reminder of his achievements.

In those days, speed skaters did not wear the streamlined skintight suits which are familiar today.

Out on the ski slopes, the racers did not wear helmets as they hurtled down the mountainside. Nor did they have aerodynamic clothing.

American Andrea Mead Lawrence was the outstanding Alpine skier of the Games. 

She won gold medals in slalom and giant slalom but finished only 17th in downhill.

"There are three Alpine events in the Olympics and each one has its own challenge. Winning two of them was not necessarily compensation for the errors of the other," Lawrence lamented.

The figure skating competitions were keenly awaited. 

Before the Second World War, Norway’s Sonja Henie had won three successive Olympic gold medals and later enjoyed a career in movies and showbusiness, a pathway often taken by skaters.

America’s 1948 men’s gold medallist Dick Button repeated his success.

He too went on to a successful career in entertainment.

Button was also a successful television executive and devised "The Superstars", a "made for television" competition.

There could be no greater contrast with the women’s champion Jeanette Altwegg.

After the Games, she moved to Switzerland to work for the Pestalozzischule, an institute for refugee children.

The Oslo Games were significant politically for the return of Germany to the Olympic fold.

They had been excluded from both the 1948 Winter Games in St Moritz and the Summer Olympics in London.

The country was divided politically, but both East and West had formed their own "National Olympic Committees."

This created a tricky problem because of the Olympic regulations. 

The Western NOC had been officially recognised, but there remained certain diplomatic formalities before athletes from the East were eventually admitted in 1956.

"It is necessary to have a special Commission formed of East and West German representatives," the IOC Session resolved.

"The best shall be chosen regardless of whether they live in East or West."

The IOC further prescribed that "the team shall march behind a mutually acceptable German flag."

In fact all 41 German team members in Oslo came from the West.

Ria Falk and husband Paul won pairs skating gold and Germany also won both two and four man bob.

The numbers involved in Oslo have been dwarfed by more modern celebrations of the Winter Games.

Women’s events have grown to an extent unimaginable in 1952 when there were only around 100 women competed.

After Oslo Games did not return to Norway for another 42 years. 

The Games staged in Lillehammer in 1994 were considered by many to be the finest ever staged.

Many now forget that Norwegians were originally in the bidding race for 2022 against Beijing.

They promised Games that would be "urban and natural, playful and responsible, ambitious and generous."

Cross-country skier Bjørn Dæhlie, winner of eight Olympic gold medals in a fabulous career, was amongst those who joined 1994 organising supremo Gerhard Heiberg to extol the virtues of the Norwegian candidacy.

Yet within a few months the Norwegian Government had pulled the rug from under the bid.

"There isn’t enough public support," Prime Minister Erna Solberg declared.

Oslo joined Stockholm, Lviv and Krakow in deciding not to go further.

Recriminations soon followed.

"This is a missed opportunity for the city of Oslo and for all the people of Norway who are known worldwide for being huge fans of winter sports," said IOC sports director Christophe Dubi.

"Senior politicians in Norway appear not to have been properly briefed on the process and were left to take their decisions on the basis of half-truths and factual inaccuracies."

Meanwhile in Norway, reports surfaced alleging unreasonable demands from Lausanne.

When the election took place in Kuala Lumpur in 2015, Beijing won by 44 votes to 40 in a two horse race against Almaty.

The IOC soon adopted Agenda 2020, aimed at a more "collaborative" approach with host cities.

"Although the bid process for 2022 began before the approval of Olympic Agenda 2020, the reforms have already had a significant impact on Beijing’s Olympic plans," the IOC claimed.

"Beijing aims to use the Games to accelerate the development of a new sport, culture and tourism area, and to encourage interest in winter sports in a region that is home to more than 300 million people in northern China."

After Agenda 2020 was introduced, it did entice seven bids for 2026 but five dropped out, including previous Olympic host cities Sapporo and Calgary. In another two horse race Stockholm/Are lost out to Milan Cortina who will receive the ceremonial Olympic handover flag in just over three weeks from now.