London Games chief: Flame not 'tourist attraction'

Published Jul. 29, 2012 11:51 a.m. ET

foxsports

The head of the London organizing committee is defending the decision to keep the Olympic cauldron out of public view. Sebastian Coe says it ''wasn't created as a tourist attraction.''

The flame was lit at the opening ceremony Friday night in the middle of Olympic Stadium. It is being moved to a corner of the stadium for the rest of the games, invisible from the outside at ground level.

The cauldron will only be visible to fans attending the track and field competition, which starts Friday.

Some spectators in Olympic Park are complaining they can't see the flame or take pictures of it.

Coe says organizers are replicating the 1948 London Olympics, when the flame was kept inside Wembley Stadium.