Hikari Shirato is trying to explain why she and her classmates are spending three hours standing in the bitter cold to see the Olympic flame arrive in their hometown.
The four teenage girls alternate between thoughtful pauses and giggles before coming up with their answer. "We feel good for Nagano," Shirato said through a translator.Thousands of this nondescript city's residents seemed to share that emotion Friday as the three Olympic flames carried throughout Japan were brought together at the newly built outdoor stage called simply Central Square.
Most had spent almost as long as Shirato and her friends waiting for the half-hour ceremony to begin. They cheered as International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Sama-ranch used the flames to ignite a caul-dron.
"Arigato (thanks), Nagano," Samaranch told the crowd, commending the community as well as the 7,000 participants in the nationwide torch relay that began on Jan. 6 in three corners of Japan.
Outside the gated Central Square, which will be used for medal awards ceremonies during the 1998 Winter Games, the Associated Press reported that the local police weren't pleased with the turnout. According to AP, loud speakers issued pleas, then demands for the crowd gathered outside the ceremony area to go home: "You can't get in. Follow police instructions and move. You are a nuisance."
The flame will be used to mark the official beginning of the Games on Saturday (Friday evening in the United States) during opening ceremonies that will give much of the world its first look at Nagano.
"So far, so good," Samaranch told reporters Friday. But he said the Nagano Games will be judged on the "participation of the population and its enthusiasm."
That was questioned by members of the IOC and others as recently as last week when the suggestion was made that the medium-sized city best known for selling regionally grown produce didn't look Olympic enough.
"I think maybe it was difficult to gauge excitement before," said John Blake, Nagano's coordinator for international relations and the only American-born English-speaker among the city government's 3,000 employees.
Friday, though, was a different story. "It's crazy out there," Blake said. "We could hear (the torch relay) inside City Hall where my office is. And you couldn't get out the front door."
Blake accompanied Salt Lake Mayor Deedee Corradini to the torch ceremony to help translate the portion of the program that was in Japanese. But the cheers from the crowd along the torch route didn't need any translation.
"I've sensed tremendous enthusiasm and excitement," Corradini said. "It was pretty impressive walking up here. What's impressed me is how open and warm and friendly everybody is. You expect a reserved demeanor."
Organizers of the 2002 Winter Games to be held in Salt Lake City haven't even started thinking about how they will bring the Olympic flame back from where it's lit - Olympia, Greece, the birthplace of the Games.
SLOC Chief Executive Officer Frank Joklik said Japan's ceremony was "very well done, very tastefully done." And he praised American figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi's role in the ceremony.
Yamaguchi, an Olmpic gold medalist in the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France, was introduced to Utah reporters earlier Friday as an ambassador for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee.
"It was very important for me to try to be here for the Games," she said, citing her Japanese heritage. "I'm actually very impressed at how many of the Japanese know who I am."
That's probably because Yamaguchi beat Japanese skater Midori Ito in Albertville. Ito will be the final torch-bearer during the opening ceremonies, lighting the Olympic flame that will burn throughout the Games.
On Friday, Yamaguchi carried one of the three flames into the Central Square along with two other women athletes, both Olympic gold medalists from Japan.