The designer of the spectacular Olympic cauldron talked today of the two year cloak-and-dagger operation to keep the project top secret.
Thomas Heatherwick said "only four or five people" had been aware of the two year project to create the cauldron which will burn for the duration of the 30th Olympic Games.
The giant creation which provided the spectacular finale to the £27 million Opening Ceremony was put together in King's Cross and in a shed in Harrogate.
The first time it was tested last week was at 3am inside a locked Olympic Stadium with only a handful of insiders present.
Even performers, volunteers and key staff were kept out of the loop as the mission to unveil the promised "wow" factor proceeded.
Prime Minister David Cameron was in on the secret and whenever backing was needed for developing the revolutionary design, he was consulted.
The cauldron featured 204 copper "petals' which each represented the nations competing at the London games and were carried alongside national flags and competitors.
In the climax of the ceremony the individual flames spread between the petals, converging on the cauldron to create one giant flame.
The cauldron was developed at the Heatherwick Studio in Kings Cross, and taken to Yorkshire for finishing and testing.
"It was like one of those James Bond secret gadget places where everything is top secret" he said.
"My own mother was cross with me for the last two weeks as she read everything and went online to try and work out where the cauldron would be placed in the stadium.
"She felt her son should at least tell her. But only four or five people knew."
Mr Heatherwick said he had wanted to create a cauldron for the Olympic flame that would “root the whole ceremony in the spectators, in the people who would be there”.
Read More
“We were aware that cauldrons have been getting bigger, higher, fatter, as each Olympics has happened and we felt that we shouldn’t try to be even bigger than the last ones.
“So then when we were thinking about this incredible event with these 204 nations coming together… it didn’t feel enough to just design a different shape of bowl on a stick.”
His solution was to create a cauldron comprised of stems topped with the petals which hydraulically lifted to converge and create a cauldron shape after they were lit in the opening ceremony.
Each petal is a different shape and an intricate operation was masterminded to ensure they fitted onto metal poles securely before being ignited.
"It seemed to work last night, which was a huge relief" he said.
The cauldron was lit in the centre of the Olympic stadium but before the athletics events begins there on August 3, it will be lifted into place at one end of the stadium where a giant bell hung during the opening ceremony.
“At the end of the Games this cauldron will dismantle itself and radiate back down to the ground and each of those copper pieces taken away by each nation and put in a national Olympic cabinet somewhere,” Heatherwick said.
One of the dancers Mehmet Ali, 35, of Ilford, Essex, said:"It was a huge surprise to nearly everyone. They would only work on it during rehearsals when everybody had left the stadium in the last few days.
"But it was amazing and incredible to be part of it."
The cauldron will be broken up at the closing ceremony and each of its 204 copper ‘petals’ given to the competing nations as a souvenir.
