The winter weather which blew into Beijing on Sunday may have extinguished the Olympic flame at the Bird’s Nest stadium.
Photos taken by a USA Today photographer early Sunday afternoon show no visible flame in the cauldron.
Traditionally the Olympic flame is lit during the opening ceremonies and remains burning for the entire duration of the Olympics.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) referred questions about the flame to the Beijing 2022 organizing committee, whose spokespeople did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
The flame is lit before every edition of the Olympics at a special ceremony in Olympia, Greece. Under the IOC bylaws the torch is lit by “the ancient method of the sun’s rays in the parabolic mirror. The Olympic flame can only be lit in this way.”
It’s not uncommon for the flame to be extinguished due to weather, torch malfunction, or human error, such as a protest. However, the IOC keeps backup lanterns on site that have been lit from the same flame as the Olympic torch at the original ceremony in Greece. The IOC has a protocol in place for relighting an extinguished torch.
If the weather did snuff out the Olympic torch, it’s happened before. During the 1976 Games in Montreal, a harsh rainstorm extinguished the uncovered flame. It was relit with a lighter by stadium workers, but when the IOC had heard what transpired, they had the flame relit from backup lanterns.
The abbreviated torch relay which led up to the Beijing Games saw the torch visit just a few cities in China before finding its way to the Olympic stadium for the opening ceremony February 4.
The Beijing cauldron itself is nontraditional. Historically host cities have had massive cauldrons visible from a great distance. However the Beijing Games opted for a small torch at the center of a web of snowflakes, due to a stated desire to be more eco-friendly.