Olympic Torch Malfunction in Opening Ceremony at Vancouver

The Opening Ceremony for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver was relatively uninspiring, not counting the pants Azerbaijan was rocking. To be fair, no performance could have lived up to Beijing’s opening ceremonies from the ’08 Summer Games, but Vancouver was disappointing by any standards. There were only a few moments that I found myself in awe while the rest of the time I was more or less bored. The 3-D whales swimming across the floor were cool and the lighted constellations were nice but the rest just dragged on. The entire ceremony could be summed up by the malfunction when they attempted to light the torch indoors. As you can tell in the picture on the left, one of the cauldron lights didn’t work and it made for an awkward scene where speedskater Catriona LeMay Doan was left standing around. Steve Nash, Wayne Gretzky, and skiier Nancy Greene saw their torches light successfully. Gretzky later was transported to light the outdoor torch which you can see in the picture on the right. As you can tell, the outdoor cauldron has four posts for support, not three.

Between Friday’s death during luge practice and the torch malfunction, Vancouver isn’t exactly off to the best start around. At least they have two weeks to make it up.

Visit GawkerTV for video of the Olympic torch malfunction.