Video

If You Take The Olympic Torch Whitewater Rafting, There’s A Good Chance The Flame Will Go Out

Indeed, it’s “not uncommon” for the Olympic torch’s flame to go out, as a spokesman for the Games’ organizing committee said after it did just that yesterday. Why, it even happened once earlier this year. But it’s especially not uncommon for the flame to go out, one would think, when it gets taken whitewater rafting. You can guess how this ends:

Really, it’s almost like they wanted the flame to go out. The full quote from that spokesman we mentioned before does a nice job highlighting the absurdity of it all (bolding ours):

‘It is not uncommon for a flame to go out and this can happen for a number of reasons,’ a LOCOG spokesman said.

‘In this instance it was due to water being splashed into the boat from the slalom course.

‘It was relit from the mother flame, which is kept in a specially designed miners’ lantern and successfully taken down the course on the second attempt.’

Who would have thought: water putting out a flame. We can’t wait for the next leg of the torch relay, through a wind farm covered in baking soda.

[Deadspin, via Fourth-Place Medal]