Summer Olympics

Next week's flame-lighting ceremony for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will go ahead in Greece despite concerns about the virus outbreak.
The Greek Olympic committee says it is working closely with national health authorities and will hold meetings to re-evaluate the situation every two days.

Greek organizers of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic flame lighting ceremony in ancient Olympia next month said on Monday they have taken extra measures to avoid the coronavirus' spread during the torch's months-long relay.

Greek Olympic shooting champion Anna Korakaki will be the first-ever woman to be the first to carry the Olympic Flame, the Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC) announced on Thursday.

In comments to Skai television channel, the head of the committee tasked with overseeing preparations to mark the bicentenary of Greece's 19-century revolt against Ottoman Turkey, Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, said the celebrations would be more significant than those for the 2004 Olympics, for which she headed the organizing committee.

An ancient Greek cup awarded as a prize to the marathon winner in the first modern Olympics of 1896 has been returned to Athens from a German university.

Greece's Culture Ministry says the 6th century B.C. pottery vessel was considered lost for decades until research in 2014 by archaeologist Giorgos Kavvadias identified it in the University of Muenster's collections.

The Olympic Flame for the Tokyo 2020 Games will be lit on March 12 at Ancient Olympia, the organizing committee of the Tokyo Olympics announced on Monday.

Pierre de Coubertin's enlightened vision for the modern Olympic Games will be going under the hammer at Sotheby's in New York in December, Agence-France Presse has reported.

London-based designer Sophia Kokosalaki has died at the age of 47, local media report.
Born in Athens in 1972, Sophia Kokosalaki studied Greek and English literature at the University of Athens before moving to London, where she graduated with an MA in womenswear from the venerable Central Saint Martins fashion college.

This month, we're taking a moment to remember the success of the Athens 2004 Olympics. We hope our friends in Athens and all Greeks do so as well. We had the privilege of witnessing this success close up, as advisers to the Athens 2004 Bid and Organizing Committees. We've not been back to Greece in these 15 years, and appreciate we have missed a very, very difficult period.

A total of 17 Turkish athletes has earned olympic quota places so far for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.