Great Flaming Fruit of the Looms!

I wish I could have found this in English.
The first "Olympic Torch" was the 'wonderful idea of Dr. Goebbles'. Yup, a PR move for the 1936 Berlin Games, to bring it from Athens to Berlin. The Greek Communists tried to keep the torch from reaching Germany (don't forget, the communists hated the nazis).

Far, far, far more amusing in the history of political/social protests surrounding the Olympics:

The Chair Leg and the Kerosene Soaked Underpants (no, shit, really):

In 1956, 9 Australian students stepped into the shoes of other protesters, in a rather different manner. As the Torch was briefly going through Sydney, one of the students, dressed in the olympic torch-bearer's garb, ran through the cheering spectators. In his hand was a torch. The students had painted a chair leg silver and attachted a pair of burning kerosene-soaked underpants. It was intended to be just a brief prank - but he then wound up with the honor-guard of the Sydney Police. At the end, he had to give the home-made torch to the mayor of Sydney, who made his speech with the silver-painted, underpants-combusting chair leg.

When the 'real' torch-bearer arrived, most of the onlookers had already gone home.