ABSTRACT
The torch for the 1968 Games was lit at Olympia in mid-August 1968. It then began a journey that moved from Greece and circulated to European sites with Olympic and Mexican connections. These included Genoa (Italy), the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, Palos (Spain), where Columbus’ expedition started in 1492, and Barcelona, a major seat of the Spanish empire. From Europe, the relay conveyed the torch by sea to San Salvador, the site of Columbus’s fi rst landing in the Americas, then on to Vera Cruz where four additional torches were lit. The fi ve torches, echoing the fi ve Olympic rings, then made their way to Mexico City by different routes. On 11 October, they arrived at the pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacán to the north of Mexico City, where a ceremony imitating the Aztec ritual of New Fire – celebrating the resurgence of life and the triumph of light over darkness – was enacted. On the evening of 12 October, Norma Enriqueta Basilio, a 20 year old 400 metre runner from Baja California, lit the Olympic fl ame; the fi rst woman in Olympic history to be given the honour.
