Excuse me for not joining in the ballyhoo over the Olympic Torch Relay last week.

In case you missed it, with a year to go until the Olympic flame arrives in the UK, the London 2012 Organising Committee announced the first 74 locations on its estimated 8,000 mile journey around the country.

The truth is, I'm a purist where the Torch Relay is concerned.

In essence, I think it is one of the most brilliant sports marketing ideas ever conceived.

A flame is lit from the sun's rays beaming down on Olympia, spiritual home of the Olympic Movement.

This is then carried, insofar as is possible on foot by a team of individuals to ignite the cauldron at the site of the next Olympic Games.

And there you have it – at a stroke, the umbilical link between the Games of today and the Ancient Olympic values is established and dramatised in a way the whole world can understand.

The problem, for me, comes when this simple but profoundly symbolic message gets mixed up with other agendas.

The classic example of this came with the vainglorious and bloated format of the 2008 relay, which became a magnet for protests and a source of embarrassment for those of us who see the Olympics, at root, as a force for good in the world.

This is not a mistake that is likely to be repeated any time soon – thank goodness.


What still leaves me uneasy about the Torch Relay in its post-Beijing guise is the way in which it is being used as an excuse to take the flame on a Cook's tour to every nook and cranny of the country in which the Games are to be staged.

I can just about accept the case for the Torch to be conveyed to Glasgow, Coventry, Weymouth and other places outside London that will actually serve as sporting venues for the 2012 Olympics – especially if it is used to light the Olympic flame at those venues.

But Guernsey? The Isle of Lewis? And why on earth is the feasibility of taking the flame on "a short visit" to Dublin being explored, even if it is with "all the relevant parties"?

Of course, I am aware that a range of powerful people are extremely keen to emphasise that the 2012 Olympics can benefit the whole country and not just London.

And I can see how the Torch Relay might seem an effective vehicle for underlining this.

Nor am I so curmudgeonly as to wish that the children of Shetland have anything other than a wonderful time on the day the Olympic caravan passes through their neck of the woods.

But I still feel this is not what the Torch Relay should be for.

There is a subsidiary point, which is that the more you embellish the flame's essential journey from Olympia to London with supplementary destinations, the more the Torch Relay will cost and the more dependent you will tend to become on corporate sponsors whose agendas may further distract from the event's fundamental symbolism.

Interestingly, no fewer than nine corporate sponsors seem so far to have got their names attached to next year's Relay, either as presenting or supporting partners.

Last week's media release name-checks each of the three presenting partners six times.

In my opinion, the best way to keep the Olympic torch relay "pure" would be for Lausanne to take charge of it and for the event to be funded out of the huge sums the International Olympic Committee receives from all worldwide partners, rather than allowing particular sponsors to have their names associated with it.

The symbolism of the flame is one of the core values that sets Olympism apart from the rest of the sporting world.

It is a message important enough to be broadcast undiluted by other agendas, however well-meaning.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 World Cup. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938