The longest torch-relay in the Winter Olympic Games history signals the upcoming Sochi 2014 Games. The organizers prepared the torch relay to run across 1.5 times the Earth's circumference.
The flame that came from Ancient Olympia would span around 65,000 kilometers starting from the globe's largest country. The relay will stretch from the Kaliningrad's western exclave up to the Chukotka's frozen wastes in the East.
According to Dmitry Chernyshenko, Sochi 2014 President, the Sochi 2014 relay aims to offer unity within the entire country, exhibit great responsibility so as to recognize once more the beauty and diversity in Russia - for the benefit of its citizens.
He said, "This torch relay is probably the most significant event connected with the Games... It is about the emotions, which are not even less intense than the Winter Olympic Games competition itself; it is a symbolism of Russian history, which we are and we will be building together as an entire nation."
From Greece, the flame will be starting its journey of 123 days in Moscow and will spiral out from the country's capital to the east and loop out the Kamchatka Peninsula. It will be at Vladivostok then back across Lake Baikal in southern Siberia.
The torch will go to eighty-three different cities and towns, with one for each country region. It will go back to European Russia spiraling down to Sochi in the Black Sea for the February 7, 2014 opening.
Chernyshenko also pointed out that "For each day, every city from which the relay goes through will be the capital of the Winter Olympics flame, this is a special opportunity for these towns and cities to make a legacy."
Around fourteen thousand torch bearers and estimated thirty thousand volunteers are expected to carry the flame which is said to be a sixty-minute travel for about 126 million people, just 90% of the total Russian population.
Russia amounts to 1/7 of the world's total land area. The flame will definitely need transport support all throughout the relay. As of the moment, plains, buses and trains are all geared up for the relay. Even the traditional sleigh, commonly ran by three horses called the "troika" will also be used to cover around 534 kilometers of distance each day for the relay to finish on time. The previous record was held by Vancouver 2010 with around 12,000 torch bearers spanning a distance of 45,000 kilometers.
