ANCIENT OLYMPIA-. Even without help from Apollo, the flame that will burn in the Olympic Games Paris was lit on Tuesday at the site in southern Greece where the ancient games were held.
Clouds thwarted efforts to get a flame in the traditional way, in which an actress dressed as a Greek priestess uses the sun to light a silver torch after offering a symbolic prayer to Apollo, the ancient Greek sun god.
Instead, a backup flame was used and had been lit in the same place on Monday, during the dress rehearsal.
Typically, one of the women playing priestesses dressed in long pleated robes tilts the fuel-filled torch over a parabolic mirror that concentrates the sun’s rays and ignites the fire.
But on this occasion it was not even attempted and the performer went directly to the reserve flame, which was kept in a replica of ancient Greek pottery. Ironically, a few minutes later the sun shone.
From the ancient stadium at Olympia, a succession of torchbearers will carry the flame more than 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) across Greece until handing it over to the organizers of the Paris Games in Athens on April 26.
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said the lighting of the flame combined “a pilgrimage to our past in ancient Olympia and an act of faith in our future.”
“In these difficult times… with wars and conflicts raging, people are fed up with all the hate, aggression and negative news,” he said. “We aspire for something that brings us together, something that unifies, something that gives us hope.”
Thousands of spectators from around the world filled Olympia for Tuesday’s event among ruins of temples and sports venues where the games were held between 776 BC and 393 BC.
The first torchbearer was Greek rower Stefanos Douskos, a gold medalist in 2021 in Tokyo. He ran to a nearby monument containing the heart of French baron Pierre de Coubertin, who sparked the formation of modern games.
The next reliever was Laure Manaudou, a French swimmer who won three medals in Athens in 2004. She handed the flame to Greek politician Margaritis Schinas, a senior European Union official.
The torch will travel from the Athenian port of Piraeus on the Belem, a three-masted French sailing ship built in 1896, the year the first modern games were held in Athens.
According to its captain, Aymeric Gibet, the Belem is scheduled to arrive on May 8 in the southern French port of Marseille, a city founded by Greek settlers about 2,600 years ago.
Source: AP
