Lotta Harala was the one to run with the torch

The Olympic Flame for the European Youth Olympic Festival was lit in a traditional ceremony in Athens on Thursday 4 June.

The President of the Hellenic Olympic Committee, Mr. Spyros Capralis gave the torch to Mr. Timo P. Nieminen, Mayor of the City of Tampere and Mr. Pekka P. Paavola, Chairman of the LOC.

In Tampere, a short ceremony was held on Monday 8 June, when the 17-year-old athlete Lotta Harala ran with the torch to the stairs of the City Hall and was photographed with Mayor Nieminen and Mr. Paavola.

- This is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion, because the Olympic Flame was burning in Tampere in 1952 for the last time at the Helsinki Olympic Games, as some football matches were played here.

- We who followed that simple but impressive ceremony at the Old Olympic Stadium in Athens will never forget it, said Nieminen.

Neither will Harala, who was the very first to run with the torch. Lotta will run the 100m Hurdles on his home track at the EYOF.

Local skills in the spotlight in the opening ceremony

The opening ceremony of EYOF in Tampere will be an excellent show of young local artists. Figure skaters, circus and fire artists from Tampere - nearly 100 performers in total - will be seen in the arena of Tampere Ice Stadium on Sunday 19 July from 8.00 pm.

A national part of the opening programme, as well as the closing ceremony at the Ratina Stadium on Friday 24 July, will be conducted by Ms. Marika Vapaavuori.

- The mystic story based on Finnish visual arts will create a unique show, Vapaavuori says.

The opening ceremony will include exactly the same official part as the Beijing Olympic Games last summer: teams will enter in a parade, the Olympic Flag will be raised, and the Olympic Hymn will be played. The Olympic Flame will be lit at the Ratina Stadium, where it will stay until the closing ceremony.

The President of Finland, Mrs. Tarja Halonen, and the President of the International Olympic Committee, Mr. Jacques Rogge, will follow the opening ceremony as the guests of honour.

"Go" is the official EYOF-song

A Finnish pop-rock band Beats and Styles has written the official EYOF-song called "Strength of Mind (Go)" for the Games in Tampere.

Beats and Styles will play "Go" live at the opening and closing ceremony. The band will be one of the stars at the Hervanta Olympic Village, where live music will be arranged for the teams every night during the games.

The band has also produced a video of "Go". In the video, the history from Helsinki Games in 1952 has been mixed with music in an interesting way. Every team member will get a CD of the music video.

Recording the video was not an entirely easy process. Beats and Styles wanted Finnish long jumper star Tommi Evilä, who lives in Tampere, to play the guitar solo in the video. The recording was made during Evilä´s training camp in Portugal, but one night after the band member Mr. Jaakko Manninen came home with the video, it was stolen, and no backup version had been made. Finally Evilä´s camp was over, and he played the solo at his home stadium Ratina. He stood on the podium - as number one, of course, and played like Eddie van Halen in Michael Jackson´s hit "Beat It".

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