Torch relay

The Belem made its first voyage in 1896, just a few weeks after the first modern Olympic Games had finished in Athens.

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games flame will be lit on April 16, marking the countdown to the July 26-Aug. 11 event in the French capital, organisers said on Friday, confirming an earlier Reuters story.

The flame will be lit at Greece's ancient Olympia, the birthplace of the Games, and will remain in the country until its departure to France from Athens on April 27.

The Olympic Torch relay will officially kick start the countdown to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games on Thursday in Fukushima-120 days to the start of the rescheduled tournament that was rescheduled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Olympic flame handover ceremony for the Tokyo Games will take place without spectators in an effort to contain the coronavirus outbreak, the Greek Olympic committee said Monday.

The Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC) decided to suspend the remainder of the Olympic Torch relay through the country to avoid attracting crowds because of coronavirus, it said on Friday.

But HOC said the opening leg of the relay in the southern Peloponnese town of Sparta attracted an "unexpectedly large crowd," forcing it to suspend the remaining stops.

Hollywood actor Gerard Butler, who played the role of King Leonidas of Sparta in the movie "300," will be in the Peloponnesian for events marking the 2,500-year anniversary of the Battle of Thermopylae, the city's honorary ambassador Roi Danali-Apostolopoulou confirmed.

Commuters were in for a headache in downtown Athens on Tuesday as the Olympic Torch relay was leading to the closure of key streets in the city center.

The countdown to the 23rd Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 has officially begun, as the lighting ceremony of the Olympic flame, which took place at Ancient Olympia in the Peloponnese came to its conclusion on October 24.

The flame for the Olympic Games in Brazil has been lit in southern Greece. An actor performing the role of high priestess lit the torch by using the sun’s rays. The torch will be taken by various runners on an international relay that will culminate at the opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro on 5 August. The ritual was established 80 years ago for the Berlin Game