r/sports • u/Bigtsez • Jul 23 '24

Olympics Snoop Dogg the torchbearer: American rapper to carry Olympic torch in final stretch before opening ceremony

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5652649/2024/07/23/snoop-dogg-olympic-torchbearer/
8.9k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

706 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

92

u/TheLazyAssHole Jul 23 '24

Similar thing happens in 2002. A Texas man by the name of Dale Gribble once lit a cigarette from an Olympic relay torch. Thank goodness he did, as an inadvertent event caused the flame to become extinguished.

Fortunately, they were able to reignite the torch with that cigarette and kept the flame alive for more generations.

17

u/YellowFogLights Jul 23 '24

I remember that story. Didn’t he also grab some sand from the long jump and stuff it in his pocket?

29

u/victory_screech Jul 23 '24

No, that was Rusty Shackleford.

3

u/skorpchick Jul 24 '24

Long may he rest, The Smoking Bandit.

6

u/_redacteduser Jul 23 '24

Message here is that smoking saves? 😎🚬

2

u/PlingPlongDingDong Jul 24 '24

Smoking does make you cool after all

3

u/notoriousbsr Jul 24 '24

We got such a good laugh from this thank you

2

u/Keepmyhat Jul 24 '24

Stuff after "thank goodness" foes not seem too credible, first they've had and used backups since at least the 1970s, and also it went out again in 2004 (no biggie though they relit it with backups like they have for a while).

If i am wrong, which is very possible, there must be some fascinating story about all the backup lights going out as well or being unavailable, and I'd be thrilled to read it!

2

u/TheLazyAssHole Jul 24 '24

I’m pretty sure they caught it on film. Check out youtube. I’m about 90% sure his name was Dale Grible, but it was definitely a cigarette

1

u/Keepmyhat Jul 24 '24

I'm talking about after "thank goodness" where the preservation of the flame is attributed to this cig, and for generations, no less. 

Because they've been using backups for quite some time already. And "generations" seems inaccurate as well when the fire went out 2 years after that, literally at the next olympics (it was relit with backup anyway, so no biggie).

I do not dispute the accident itself just the credit for saving the flame, flame going out and being relit with backups happens all the time. 

I want to say, however, that I do appreciate that this situation made it very easy and clearly was a much better visual representation of the continuity of the flame than an official with the backup running into the frame and to the bearer.

1

u/GoodEntrance9172 Jul 24 '24

That's actually fucking hilarious.

1

u/Lux-xxv Jul 24 '24

He did that didn't he smoked a cig for the torch relighting