Client:
Jack Morton/ATHOC, Athens
The Olympic Rings of Fire was an iconic moment from the Athens 2004 Olympic Games opening ceremony, which was viewed live by 4.5 billion people, more than previous Olympic Games Ceremony. The FCT team defined and adhered to an engineering and project management system to ensure the successfully and timely delivery of this extremely complex project in the short time available.
The vision to create the Olympic Rings symbol with fire in the middle or a body of water, which would then be drained for use during the competition, posed several challenges.
Safety was a key consideration as approximately 50MW of natural gas was to be released in a short period of time when the Rings of Fire was fully ignited.
A key aspect to ensuring complete reliability was recognising the importance of the flame ignition systems. All ignition systems were designed and developed specifically to adapt to suit the Rings of Fire. The control system design also considered many contingencies to eliminate possible failures.
FCT supervised the installation of the equipment on site in Athens and performed all commissioning of the effect. The Rings of Fire worked successfully during the official commissioning of the project and performed perfectly on the night of the Opening Ceremony.
The Rings of Fire was regarded as the highlight of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games opening ceremony, and seen as an example of ground-breaking engineering.
Adam Wildy, Senior Technical Director of Jack Morton Public Events regarded the Rings of Fire as “an enduring and iconic image” and praised FCT for their “excellent service, and delivery of everything that was as promised.”