ROBBEN ISLAND, South Africa, 13 June 2004 — Former South African President Nelson Mandela stepped out of retirement yesterday to carry the Olympic flame on Robben Island, his prison for 18 years.
Mandela was one of 125 athletes and celebrities to carry the torch through Cape Town and the barren, windswept island on its six-week relay back to Athens for this year’s Olympic Games.
“I have been here for a very long time and to a very large extent Robben island is a place with which I identify. I am very happy...that this honor has been given to Robben Island,” he said.
The Nobel peace prizewinner, who turns 86 next month, visibly struggled to lift the heavy torch after a runner handed him the flame as he stood in the courtyard of his former prison.
Mandela spent 18 years of his 27-year prison term during the apartheid era in the jail. He formally bowed out of public life two weeks ago to spend more time with his family and to complete his memoirs.
Dressed in a blue and red tracksuit with Olympic symbols, Mandela was presented with a souvenir torch and a commemorative medal by members of the Athens Olympic Committee.
The torch arrived in Cape Town early yesterday from Cairo on the eighth stop of its foreign tour of 33 cities. It next travels to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
Former national soccer captain Lucas Radebe will complete a 58-km course that winds through the city’s poor Cape Flats, to top tourist spot the V&A Waterfront, and on to Table Mountain.
The Leeds United player will light the Olympic cauldron in the city center’s Grand Parade to signify South Africa’s participation in the global sports event.
The flame was lit from the sun’s rays in Olympia on March 25 and will travel to the five continents represented by the Olympic Rings.
The torch returns to Greece on July 9 for a final tour before entering the Olympic stadium in Athens to light the cauldron on Aug. 13.
