Torchbearers stoked to carry flame
Victoria Feistmantl with the e-mails that informed her she’d been chosen as a torchbearer.
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Updated: November 04, 2009 7:41 AM
On Oct. 30, the Olympic Flame began its 45,000-kilometre, 106-day journey from Victoria across Canada and back to Vancouver where it will be used to light the 2010 Olympic cauldron on Feb. 12, 2010.
Among the 12,000 torchbearers who will carry the flame in relay fashion are two very excited South Cariboo high school students from Peter Skene Ogden Secondary.
On Jan. 29, Victoria Feistmantl, 15, will run with the torch on a stretch of Highway 97 between Williams Lake and Prince George, and on Jan. 30, Josh Larson, 16, will carry it between the aboriginal communities of Hagwilget and Gitanmaax in the Bulkley Valley.
Both are ecstatic about being asked to participate.
Feistmantl learned she was being considered as a torchbearer in June.
While checking her e-mail messages that day, she was stunned to find a congratulatory message from VANOC telling her she’d made it through the preliminary round. Feistmantl says the e-mail also stated she had a few days to write a 200-word essay about active living that would be the final consideration.
“I tried my best, but I didn’t know what they were looking for.”
When the next e-mail came, stating she’d made it, she cried. “I really didn’t think I’d get picked,” Feistmantl says, adding a distant connection with the Olympics is what she thinks got her a spot in the relay.
Her essay told of her Austrian uncle who had won a gold medal in the luge event at the 1964 Innsbruck Olympics and carried the Olympic Torch during the 1976 Innsbruck Games.
Feistmantl, who was born in Austria and came to Canada five years ago, doesn’t have any personal Olympic dreams at the moment, but she is a fan of ski jumping and has tried it herself. While on a trip to Austria a few years ago, friends who are ski jump trainers showed her the ropes and she was instantly hooked.
“There’s just no opportunity to do it here, though. If there was, I’d do it for sure.”
Her current focus is on carrying the 1.6-pound torch during her leg of its journey. To prepare, Feistmantl has been doing a lot of running with a weight in her hand.
Feistmantl notes she already has tickets for ski jumping and is looking forward to catching the event in Whistler.
Larson will run his leg of the torch journey on Jan. 30 in an area near Hazelton.
He found out about his good fortune via a call on his cell phone one morning in mid-October while making his way to school.
This won’t be the first time he’s carried a torch for a major sporting event; in 2006, he was a torchbearer for the 100 Mile House Northern B.C. Winter Games.
In his essay, Larson wrote about his involvement with athletics and how his Grade 6 teacher, Mr. Bergen from Mile 108 Elementary, got him going. Bergen, himself, is an Olympic rower.
Both torchbearers will have to pay their own expenses when they travel north to do their run, but neither is complaining.
“I’m thrilled to be a
part of the Olympic
spirit. I’ll get to meet new people and I’ve never been to that area before,” says Larson. “I’m OK with paying my way.”
According to VANOC, torchbearers are running in communities other
than their own because at the time online applications were taken, people were only given the option of selecting the date
they wished to run and
not a location. At that
time, VANOC did not have the actual Torch
Run schedule.
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