体坛英语新闻：Olympic Flame for 2014 Winter Olympics shines on Acropolis hill

ATHENS, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Olympic Flame for the 2014 Winter Olympics has shone on the Acropolis hill since Friday afternoon when the torch relay across Greece ended.

On Saturday, the sacred flame which was lit last Sunday at Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games, will start its trip towards Russia's Sochi.

Before reaching the Acropolis in Athens, the flame crossed some 2,000 kilometers across Greece over the past few days, spreading the messages for friendship and peace.

The cauldron at the shadow of the Parthenon temple on the sacred rock was lit with the symbol of Olympism by Manolis Katsiadakis, the Secretary General of the Hellenic Olympic Committee which organized the six-day Greek leg of the relay.

It will be illuminating the Acropolis hill overnight, before being carried on Saturday to the Panathinaic stadium for the hand-over ceremony to the Russian organizers of the February 7-28 Games.

At the venue which hosted the first modern Olympic Games, Greeks plan to bid farewell to the Flame with a moving ceremony, sending their best wishes for good games at Sochi to the athletes and spectators.