By David F. Rooney
People were whooping it up after Tuesday’s grand Olympic Torch Relay Celebration when Neills Kristensen answered his phone at 9:45 pm for a call he never thought he’d receive: “How would you like to carry the Torch on Wednesday morning?”
“I was so excited I called the Maritimes and told my family,” he said over breakfast in the dining room at Powder Springs after his moment of glory on Wednesday morning. “My dad was like: ‘I don’t believe you! At this moment I really don’t believe you!'”
But it was true and Kristensen now has the uniform and the Torch to prove it — something he did again and again and again and again as complete strangers asked if he would pose for pictures.
He was one of the last three Revelstokians to carry the Torch in town. The other two were fast friends and running buddies Lynne Welock and Annie Woodhurst.
“This was such a grand moment,” Welock said. “I felt a real sense of accomplishment inside me.”
The two whooped with excitement as they posed for photos while the train carrying the Olympic flame dwindled into the distance, bound fro Craigallechie, Malakwa, Salmon Arm and other towns on the road to Vancouver 2010.
Here are images from the Torch’s last moments in town:
