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Rapier's Staff Borrows Olympic Torch From Mexico

By Tom Adams
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

Photo By Sports Illustrated

Is This The Real Olympic Torch?

Doubt Cast On International Games' Symbol By Editors' Coup

Copyright 1968, The Cavalier Daily

The Olympic flame — the real
Olympic flame, that is — is not at the
Olympic Games in Mexico City but in a
well-hidden spot in Charlottesville.

A group of editors of Rapier
magazine, the "magazine of satire and
broad discussion," have succeeded in
substituting a torch of their own for the
real Olympic torch, the symbol of the
international athletic competition, and
carrying it across the Mexican border
into this country.

The amazing plot of how the
Olympic torch was "borrowed" began
last spring when a group of Rapier
editors and staff came up with the idea
at a cocktail party in Charlottesville.

A Rapier spokesman described the
operation as follows:

Contact was made with a Mexican
who knew several of the Mexican runners
who would carry the Olympic
torch from Vera Cruz to the capital for
the games.

Meanwhile, the Rapier staff procured
pictures of the Olympic torch and an
exact replica was created by a group of
engineers. That replica is now in Mexico
City.

The contact in Mexico found a runner
who agreed, for a sum of money, to
a transferral of the real torch with the
Rapier replica. The exchange took place
and the false torch, which was lit with
one of the Rapier editors' Zippo lighter,
went on to Mexico City and the
Olympic Games.

The real flame was transferred from
the solid-fuel torch to a kerosene lantern
and placed in the trunk of a car
with air-vents punctured in the back
seat and driven north to the U.S.-Mexican
border.

The real torch was buried in Mexico.
One of the editors of Rapier told The
Cavalier Daily yesterday that the group
of people who drove the flame into this
country thought they might have a hard
time explaining to the border guards
why they wanted to take a lighted
kerosene lantern across the border, so a
cigarette was lit from the flame, which
was then extinguished, and the group
crossed the border without incident.

Once in this country, a match was
held up to the cigarette and from it the
kerosene lantern was re-lit. The group of
plotters then drove on to Charlottesville
where the flame was hidden. Its exact
location is a well-kept secret.

The editors of Rapier do not want
the runner they bribed to get into any
trouble. To keep his identity from
becoming known, they refused to disclose
the day or the location of the
transfer.

For the 1968 Olympic Games, the
Olympic torch was lit on Mount
Olympus in Greece, the site of the
ancient games and run, shipped and
flown to Vera Cruz, Mexico. From there
it was supposed to have been run to
Mexico City.

That flame will be returned to the
Mexican government, as a gift, sometime
Friday afternoon. From the Rapier
offices at 214 Rugby Road, above the
Prism, tomorrow morning at 11 the first
of many runners will depart with the
flame down Rugby Road, through the
Rotunda, and over to Route 29, where
he will head north towards Washington.

Every half-mile a new runner will
take the flame. By late Friday afternoon,
the Rapier staff has figured, the
last runner will carry the flame to the
Mexican Embassy on 16th Street in
Washington where, it will be given to
the Mexican government.

Both runners and people with cars
are needed to set up the runners in
relays for the flame's trip to
Washington. Any students interested in
participating should contact the Rapier
Offices by telephone at 295-3070 today.

The Rapier editors would not give
any more details.

Rapier Runner Exchanges Torches With Olympic Torchbearer

Rapier Editors Smuggled Traditional Flame Across Mexican Border