Sydney Lord Mayor Frank Sartor is hoping to receive the olympic torch at the town hall on thursday. He would prefer that, given the choice, to a sawed-off broom handle attached to a silver-painted tin and containing a pair of burning underpants.
That is what was handed to Pat Hills, one of his predecessors, when the torch last came to the city on its way to the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
University student Barry Larkin pulled off the hoax, as a protest against the massive publicity surrounding the event.
Larkin, now a successful Sydney veterinarian, recalled that he set fire to the kerosene-soaked underwear in the home-made torch and was greeted by cheering crowds as he ran through the city just before the arrival of the real Olympic flame.
"I had a police escort with about six or seven motorcycles," he said.
"I finished up at Town Hall, went up the steps, gave the torch to Pat Hills and he was off into his speech... A lot of people didn't realize it was a hoax. By the time the real torch turned up, half the crowd had gone."
Sartor said he would be on the look-out for bogus torchbearers and blazing boxer shorts, but added philosophically: "We will take it in our stride if it happens."
