page_title: 2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremony
section_title: Lighting of the Cauldron
hierarchical_section_title: 2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremony / Program / Lighting of the Cauldron
caption_attribution_description: Close up of the Olympic flame
context_page_description: The Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics was held on February 12, 2010 beginning at 6:00 pm PST at BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This was the first Olympic opening ceremony to be held indoors. It was directed by David Atkins.
  The event was officially opened by Governor General Michaëlle Jean, representative of Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada. The opening ceremony was dedicated by the Vancouver Organizing Committee to Nodar Kumaritashvili, a Georgian luger who died earlier in the day in a training run. An audience of 61,600 were in attendance at the venue. There were an estimated 4,500 performers.
context_section_description: Rick Hansen, paraplegic athlete and paralympic medalist, carried the flame into BC Place stadium and lit the torch of speed skater Catriona Le May Doan, who in turn lit the torch of basketball All-Star Steve Nash. Nash then lit skier Nancy Greene's torch who lit the torch of Wayne Gretzky, Hall of Fame hockey player.  Le May Doan, Nash, Greene, and Gretzky then made their way to their four pre-determined locations on the stadium floor to await the raising of the cauldron.
  Due to a malfunction of the Olympic cauldron's hydraulic system, only three of the four arms came up before it was lit. Le May Doan's designated arm of the cauldron had malfunctioned, so she stood by as the other three athletes lit the cauldron at the same time by touching the base of the arms with their respective torches.  After the cauldron was lit, a series of red fireworks were shot off in a ring around the exterior of the stadium.  Gretzky then jogged out of the stadium, where he was then driven by police escorts through the streets of downtown Vancouver to light a second, outdoor cauldron near the Vancouver Convention Centre located in the city's downtown waterfront district.  Under IOC rules, the lighting of the Olympic cauldron must be witnessed by those attending the opening ceremony, implying that it must be lit at the location where the ceremony is taking place. Although another IOC rule states that the cauldron should be witnessed outside by the entire residents of the entire host city, this was not possible since the ceremony took place indoors. However, VANOC secretly built a second outdoor cauldron next to the West Building of the Vancouver Convention Centre, and Gretzky was secretly chosen to light this permanent cauldron. Quickly word spread through the downtown Vancouver area that Gretzky was indeed the final torchbearer, and very soon a crush of people came running after the police escort to cheer Gretzky on and hopefully catch a glimpse of him carrying the torch to the outdoor cauldron.
  The closing ceremony of the games would begin with a tongue-in-cheek homage to the indoor cauldron malfunction, featuring mime Yves Dagenais repairing and finally raising the missing arm of the cauldron, and offering Le May Doan a chance to finally light her arm of the interior cauldron.
caption: The exterior cauldron, after having been lit
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