At least the Nazis got it right with their Olympic torch relay

THE Olympic torch passed through Eastbourne this week - not that I saw any of the procession as it rolled into town and along the seafront before heading out towards Pevensey.

Instead, I was co-ordinating coverage of the event from the newsroom, uploading words and pictures sent in by all manner of media from reporters and the public, onto the newspaper's website - and then using Twitter and Facebook to signpost the digital audience to our website. How the world of the 21st century newsroom has moved on rapidly.

In Eastbourne around 50,000 people turned out to see the torch pass through and pretty impressive it was too. The sun shone, albeit briefly, and for an hour or so the uplifting glow of Olympic sunshine blazed upon the town. 

From taking the reporters' copy over the phones, and seeing the scores of photos which poured in via email, capturing the carnival atmosphere of the occasion, you sensed there was a real community spirit on the streets, moreso than for the recent Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

Coincidentally, I have just finished reading a book about the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the controversial Games billed as a propaganda coup for Adolf Hitler, only to be upstaged by the American black athlete and four-time gold medal winner, Jesse Owens.

Since the sole sponsors of the Olympics in Berlin was the Nazi Party, commercialism was negligible and yet ironically it was a guy called Carl Diem, the organiser of the 11th Olympiad in Germany  whose brainchild the torch relay was. Then, it was nothing more than a piece of brazen political theatre.

The relay comprised a 12-day overland run from Olympia in Greece where the flame was lit amidst the ancient ruins by the shirtless Greek runner Konstantinos Kondylis. The steel-clad torches contained a magnesium-burning element which allowed them to stay alight on their epic 2,000 mile journey through Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia.

Then on August 1st, 1936,  German runner Fritz Schilgen held the torch aloft as he entered Berlin’s Olympic Stadium in front of 100,000 spectators to mark the start of the Games.

It is all a far fry from the procession of commercial vehicles which proceeded the torch relay this week, motor cycle outriders, a phalanx of grey-shirted security staff carefully guarding a white shirted runner as each ran their 300m metre leg - running being a rather loosely applied word since there have been participants with a range of abilities taking part, some struggling to make the distance, yet all cheered on by the huge crowds.

To see the likes of paratrooper Ben Parkinson, who refused to use crutches to complete his stint in Doncaster despite losing both legs and suffering brain injuries after driving over a mine in Afghanistan was both chilling and emotional; bravery, courage, indomitable spirit, call it what you will, that's what this torch relay represented, along with the stories of many others who took to the streets in recognition of their achievements, especially within the community.

However, what stuck in the craw was the commercialism of it all. As the colourful Lloyds TSB, Coca-Cola and Samsung trucks blazed a trail some five minutes ahead of the runner along with the advanced torch cavalcade of security vehicles and runners' minibuses, it was noticeable how the torch relay cast list of runners was filled with a mixture of nominated worthies as well as those selected by the Olympics sponsors.

For sure, some of  those selected to take part, either from the corporate sector or by the Olympic organisers themselves, would have been worthy. Others, I'm not so sure, certainly from a geography point of view, we had participants who had no association with the area where they were ruynning.

How can it be right that for the 120 runners who carried the torch through East Sussex from Brighton to Hastings on day 60 of the relay, only 57 were from the region - and of those not everyone actually ran in their home town? Instead, the rest of the runners came from all points of the UK with no connection with the area, along with Sharjah, Korea, Russia, France, Italy and quite a few from Germany.

That can't be right. To be fair to Carl Diem, the torch route in 1936 went through six different countries before reaching the German border, so other nations became involved. But did the organisers of the Beijing Olympics four years ago allow foreign runners to parade through their country with the torch, and how about Athens in 2004? I genuinely don't know the answer, but surely the spirit of the torch is about recognising our communities and those who hold the symbollic torch aloft do so through the communities they serve.

It is commercialism gone mad, and such a shame.