In every Finnish municipality and rural commune through which the route lay, a local Torch Relay organisation was set up of local government authorities and members of local sports organisations. This body selected the runners, marked out stages and carried out all practical arrangements in their locality.
Relay stages were about one kilometre and the average speed, with halts, 5-6 minutes per km. The Midnight Sun Flame was carried from Pallastunturi to Tornio by 330 runners, and between Tornio and Helsinki there were 1 350 runners.
Accompanying the Flame from Pallastunturi to Helsinki in a service car in the capacity of Technical Manager of the Torch Relay was the secretary of the Torch Relay Committee. In addition to the service car the convoy consisted throughout of a truck, a farmer's car and two private cars, one for the representatives of the Organising Committee, the other empty in reserve for any special duties that might arise. The service car moved ahead of the Flame to the change-over sites to deliver a fresh torch. The truck carried the receptacle in which the Flame burned during the night at the stop-overs.
The Organising Committee's representative, Vice-Chairman Akseli Kaskela, gave the starting order for the Midnight Sun Torch Relay on Pallastunturi fell and also received the torch on the Tornio athletic field, stressing in his speech the symbolical significance to the host-country of the merging into one of the Olympic Flame and the Flame from the north.
The Flame was kindled on Taivaskero, a summit on the fell Pallastunturi, by Mr. Jarl Sundqvist. The first torch-bearer was Pekka Niemi, former World Champion in the 50-km ski event. Also in the sparsely-populated Lapland wilds the relay aroused the keenest interest. The runners moved, no matter how late the hour, at the head of an escort of scores of cyclists and a long string of cars carrying devotees to the Torch Ceremony in Rovaniemi. During the ceremony in Rovaniemi the Flame burned in front of the War Memorial Graves. Major-General Yrjö Valkama was in Haparanda on the Swedish side of the frontier to welcome the Olympic Torch Relay on behalf of the Organising Committee. Here the Torch was officially handed over to the Finns. Colonel Wiklund of Sweden gave it on the frontier bridge between Haparanda and Tornio to Ville Pörhölä, Olympic victor in the shot event. At a ceremony in Tornio the Olympic Flame and the Midnight Sun Flame were then merged, the two torch-bearers, after making a triumphant round of the running track, arriving at the rostrum simultaneously and both at the same moment kindling the bowl on the rostrum. The Swedish guard of honour which had escorted the Flame through Sweden came on across the frontier to the Tornio athletic field for a final leave-taking. In a speech at this ceremony Major-General Valkama thanked the Swedish relay runners, Sweden's sporting youth and the entire Swedish nation for the great enthusiasm shown in a common cause. The Governor of Lapland, Uuno Hannula, voiced the sentiments of his province.
Paavo Nurmi kindles the Olympic Flame in the Bowl in the Stadium with his Torch
In Hämeenlinna, where the modern pentathlon was to be held, the torch kindled an Olympic Flame in the Town Hall, from where it was ceremoniously transferred to the pentathlon venue for the duration of the event.
The last stopping-place before the Olympic Stadium was the Käpylä Olympic Village. There, with young women gymnasts forming a guard of honour, it burned for an hour and a half. The relay through the streets of Helsinki went off as scheduled. A police car preceding the runner was in wireless communication with the Stadium to enable the rate of progress to be regulated. Exactly to the minute the last runner, Paavo Nurmi, arrived through the Stadium gate at the arena. Four Helsinki footballers had the honour of carrying the torch to the top of the Stadium tower, where the Bowl was kindled by Hannes Kolehmainen. In Finland the Torch Relay set in motion close on a million people, a fourth of the total population. The enthusiasm of the crowds along the route was tremendous. People came to the ceremonies held at the stopping places from a hundred or more miles away. The ceremony on the athletic field in Kyyjärvi, a rural commune with 2 800 inhabitants, drew an attendance of 7 000.
On its route from Hellas to Helsinki the Olympic Flame was an impressive and beautiful reminder to many millions of people of the Games at which the youth of the whole world would assemble across all frontiers and dividing lines to compete under the banners of friendship and peace.
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