10 notable olympic flame cauldron designs

The New York Times put together a fascinating list of Olympic flame relay torches. However, the cauldrons that they light are often more interesting being part of the original Athenian games, both figuratively and in spirit. The torch relay is neither, having been created by the Nazis.

Dramatic sculptural cauldrons were built for more recent Winter or Summer Games, such as Salt Lake City, Barcelona or most recently, Turin, with its tall fire breathing chimneys, like an oil refinery burn off.

Both Barcelona and Sydney introduced spectacle in the way the cauldrons were lit: a single shot, flaming arrow from a remote archer, in Barcelona, and a spectacular self assembling tower emerging, on fire, from a pool of water, in Sydney.

The simple, iconic cauldron also stand out, and nowhere more so that the pared down minimalist version at the 1976 Montreal Games, which could not have been more different from the gargantuan vulgarity of the stadium itself.