A fitting symbol.

Byline: The Register-Guard

There's something special about seeing the Olympic flame being transported from country to country, state to state, city to city, block to block, from Olympia in Greece to the host site for the Olympic Games. That specialness was on display Tuesday in Oregon, as the torch made its way from Klamath Falls through Eugene, Salem and Portland on its way to a Feb. 8 arrival in Salt Lake City, host of this year's Winter Games.

Some may view the 65-day, 13,500-mile Olympic Torch Relay as a bit of an overstatement, or as glitziness and hype befitting what the Olympic Games have become. The torch relay nonetheless represents the simplicity at the core of what the ancient Greeks began: competition, athletic grace and excellence.

The relay also puts a human face on the gigantic Games.

Some 11,500 torchbearers from all walks of life have carried or will carry the torch - made of glass, copper and high-polish silver and representing "a fiery icicle in motion" - on each leg of about 0.2 miles, or four city blocks. The torchbearers are nominated for the honor by family, friends or co-workers. Some are government bigwigs, others are star athletes (Joey Harrington carried it Tuesday on one relay leg in Portland), and still others are former Olympians (injured downhill skier and gold medal winner Bill Johnson, for instance). But most are average citizens, some are disabled and many are individuals who have touched the lives of others.

At its core, the torch relay is a reminder that although the modern Olympic Games have been tarnished by scandal, big money, too much hype and tawdry bidding wars among cities or countries competing to serve as host, the Games themselves are linked - in spirit and time - to the ancient Greek competitions. They embody the ideal of skilled athletes measuring their prowess against those from other cultures, other parts of the world, other societies.

At their best, the Olympic Games are a unifying force for humankind. And the Olympic Torch Relay allows ordinary humans - and, on Tuesday, ordinary humans in Oregon - to touch, for just an instant, the magic of what the Olympic Games are, or should be, all about.