Twenty years later, it's time to blow up one of the most common myths surrounding Calgary's XV Olympic Winter Games.
Barbara Ann Scott and Ferd Hayward weren't the first Canadians to carry the official Olympic flame.
It was me.
Sorry, Barbara, even though you are one of the classiest ladies. It was an accident -- you can blame it on the Olympic Gods -- but I have the photos to prove it.
The location was historic Olympia, Greece. It was the day before the official torch lighting was to take place, when good fortune and a few clouds conspired to turn a Sun writer -- that would be me -- into the first Canadian to carry the flame.
Amidst the crumbled ruins of ancient Olympia, a bevy of Greek goddesses, Olympic officials and journalists gathered for an official rehearsal to the well-scripted ritual of the torch lighting.
I watched in awe as the sun's rays, reflected off a parabolic mirror and ignited a special film on the torch during the rehearsal. Katerina Didaskalou, the High Priestess of the Olympics, who I later discovered was an actress in New York, handed the torch off to a runner to mimic the official ceremony scheduled to take place the next day.
The rehearsal went off without a hitch.
But as the ceremony wound down, I noticed a Greek gentleman placing the flame from the rehearsal torch into a small lantern. Ever the curious journalist, I asked him why.
He explained through an interpreter he was the official keeper of the flame, and his job was to ensure there was a sun-inspired flame to use if the clouds did not allow a traditional torch lighting the next day.
Presumably, he would take the flame from that lantern to preserve the flames' integrity at the official ceremony.
I grabbed the Calgary torch and asked him if he could light it for me for a photo amidst the Olympic ruins.
No problem, he said, handing over his business card, which proclaimed him the official flame keeper.
After I posed for photos, I handed the torch off to a group of other journalists and officials.
You can see where this is going.
The next day, the clouds rolled in and the flame was lit from that very lantern I had used the previous day.
For several weeks, everyone in Canada was guessing who the first Canadian to carry the torch would be. Wayne Gretzky, Brian Mulroney, Rick Hansen, Ken Read ... the deserving list was a long one.
And when we arrived in Newfoundland, Nov. 17, 1987, for the start of the cross-Canada torch relay, it was Scott and Hayward who emerged from the frigid crowd on Signal Hill as the surprise selections as the first Canadian torch bearers.
Scott was so thrilled afterwards I couldn't break the news she was an unwitting fraud. Who am I to stand in the way of the truth?
