Brunei receive Olympic Copper Petal

HRH Prince Haji Sufri Bolkiah taking a closer look at the original Copper Petal from the Olympics Cauldron

HRH Prince Haji Sufri Bolkiah and Pehin Dato Seri Setia Hazair with the Olympians along with the original Copper Petal. Photos: Dean Kassim

|      Jake Ten     |

HIS Royal Highness, Prince Haji Sufri Bolkiah, the President of Brunei Darussalam National Olympic Council, consented to a special photo session with the Copper Petal presented to Brunei Darussalam as a memento at the Hassanal Bolkiah National Stadium yesterday.

The Copper Petal, one of 204 handmade copper petals, was part of the cauldron which took centre stage at the Olympic Stadium during the London Olympic and Paralympic Games and was dismantled after the closing ceremony for each of the games.

In an excerpt from the Guardian, Thomas Heatherwick, the cauldron’s designer, had said that he had not wanted to try to make it bigger or taller than those at previous games, and chose to focus instead on the symbolic meaning.

“We were aware cauldrons had been getting bigger, higher, fatter as each Olympics happened and we felt we shouldn’t try to be even bigger than the last ones,” Heatherwick told the Guardian last year.

“This incredible event has 204 nations coming together, so we had a child from each country bringing these copper polished objects in. At the end of the Games this cauldron will dismantle itself and radiate back down to the ground and each of those copper pieces will be taken away by each nation.”

Also present on this prestigious occasion was Pehin Orang Kaya Pekerma Laila Diraja Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Hazair bin Haji Abdullah, the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, as well as Mr Robert Dominic Russell Fenn, the British High Commissioner to Brunei Darussalam.

Brunei’s Olympic athletics duo of Maziah Mahusin and Ak Hafiy Tajuddin Pg Rositi also made an appearance for the photo session.

Maziah made history in last summer’s Olympics in London by becoming the first female athlete to represent Brunei Darussalam at an Olympic Games, and was also the first female athlete to record a sub-minute 400m time with her personal best and national record time of 59.28 seconds.

All selected photos of Brunei’s National Olympic Council with the Copper Petal will be sent to Thomas Heatherwick and Lord Sebastian Coe, Chairman, LOCOG, as a memento from the Brunei Darussalam National Olympic Council, and to reassure them that the iconic petal has returned home safely.