圣火采集：torch lighting
[ 2008-03-24 16:34 ]

希腊雅典时间今天中午11点，北京时间17时，北京奥运会圣火的采集仪式将在希腊古奥林匹亚遗址举行。昨天，圣火采集仪式的最后一次彩排取得了圆满成功。

请看《中国日报》的报道：

A backup plan was successfully rehearsed yesterday to ensure that bad weather does not dampen the torch-lighting ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in ancient Olympia, the birthplace of the Games, today.

为保证今天在奥运会的发祥地古奥林匹亚进行的北京奥运会圣火采集仪式不会被糟糕的天气所破坏，点火备用方案于昨天成功彩排。

该报道中，torch-lighting 就是“火炬点火”或者“圣火采集”的意思，也可译成 flame-lighting。

The torch-lighting ceremony of the Beijing Olympics就是“北京奥运会圣火采集仪式”。

如果要表达“点燃火炬”的意思，可以用light the torch，light用作动词的时候，就是“点燃，变亮”的意思。

例如：

We lit the candle and the candle lit the room.

我们点燃了蜡烛，蜡烛照亮了房间。

Her face lit up when she saw he was coming.

当她看到他走过来的时候，她的脸亮了起来。



与奥运火炬传递相关的表达有：

Olympic flame 奥运圣火

torchbearer 火炬手

torch relay 火炬传递

relay route 传递路线

（ZT）

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The Beijing Olympic torch will be lit by the sun's rays in ancient Olympia, Greece, on March 24.


3月24日，北京奥运会圣火将在希腊古奥林匹亚遗址点燃。届时，奥运圣火将通过阳光采集，让阳光集中在一枚凹面镜的中央，让其产生高温，然后引燃圣火。用此传统的方式取火，象征着奥运圣火的纯洁，也象征着古奥运会传统的传承。

The Beijing Olympic torch will be lit by the sun's rays in ancient Olympia, Greece, on March 24, according to the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG).

"We will continue with the traditional way to kindle the flame as it symbolizes the purity of the Olympic flame," Li Ping, spokeswoman for BOCOG's Olympic Torch Relay Center, was quoted as saying by Beijing Morning Post over the weekend.

"The flame is lit using a concave mirror to focus the rays of the sun, and a back-up fire will be prepared the same way during the rehearsal phase in case of cloudy weather on March 24," she added.

Li quoted Greek mythology that says the Sun God Apollo originally lit the Olympic flame to bring brightness and warmth to human beings.

The flame will be handed over to BOCOG at 3 pm on March 30 at the Panathenian Stadium in Athens, the city where the first modern Olympics Games was held in 1896.

After a reception in Beijing on March 31, the Olympic flame will begin its global tour of 135 cities around the world on April 1. The relay will cover 137,000 km in 130 days before the flame finally arrives at the National Stadium in Beijing on Aug 8, 2008 for the opening ceremony.

The highlight of the torch relay, involving a total of 21,780 torchbearers, will be an attempt to take the Olympic flame to the summit of Mount Qomolangma, known as Mt Everest in the West, in May. Li said the list of some 19,400 torchbearers and the roadmap for the torch relay over 700 cities in China would be made public soon.

Vocabulary:

purity: 纯洁

concave mirror: 凹面镜

back-up: 备用

April 1 is a special day.