An international stage will be excluded from the Olympic fire relay

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) intends to make radical changes to the Olympic fire relay. An international stage will be excluded from it, and now it will be held only in the country that accepts games.

In support of this reform, members of the IOC management, who held a three -day meeting in Denver (Colorado), made this reform on Thursday.

However, the decision itself will enter into force only in 2016, but the IOC leaders are going to turn to the organizers of the three upcoming Olympiads with a proposal to abandon the international stage, the Echo of Moscow reports.

At the same time, the Committee’s leaders emphasized that the decision to change the relay format has come up after the 2004 games in Athens. And the last straw was the scandal around the Beijing Olympics. Then the baton of fire was accompanied by numerous protests. In Paris, supporters of the independence of Tibet nearly threw the event, attacking one of the torches. In many ways, therefore, the IOC decided that it was time to abandon the international stage.

The organizers of the 2010 Games in Vancouver and 2012 in London have already stated that during the relay, they will be limited to the territories of their countries. IOC intends to apply to the same proposal to the organizers of the Sochi Olympiad-2014.