James Oberstar: “Mr. Speaker, during the afternoon of June 20, the Olympic torch, which will signal the start of the Summer Olympic…”

“Mr. Speaker, during the afternoon of June 20, the Olympic torch, which will signal the start of the Summer Olympic Games, will pass through the Capitol Grounds. It will have been in relay across the United States for 84 days, starting April 27 of this year in Los Angeles. Including the games, the flame will have been in play throughout the United States for over 100 days. It will travel through 42 States. It will visit 29 State capitols. It will come within a 2-hour distance of 90 percent of the population of the United States. The flame will visit 11 pairs of cities: Rochester, MN, and Rochester, NY; Albany, GA, and Albany, NY, for example. It travels 150 miles a day, 10 miles an hour, 15 hours a day. There are numerous community celebrations and festivities all across the route, as is befitting an event of this magnitude and significance. The United Way is the provider of community support and volunteer services for the 1996 Olympic torch relay. It is really impressive that there will be over 10,000 runners carrying the torch. It will move by numerous conveyances: bicycle, 19-car train, horseback, canoe, steamboat, on the Great Lakes by one of our lakers, aircraft, sailboat. All will be used to carry the flame at one time or another into Atlanta.”