奥运圣火在奥林匹亚点燃

It all begins in Olympia, Greece. A few months before the opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympic Games, the torch lighting ceremony is now being held at the original site of the Olympic Games, the ancient sanctuary of Olympia.

Standing in front of the 2,600-year-old Temple of Hera, a Greek actress playing the traditional role of the high priestess will light the flame using the direct rays of the sun, in a solemn occasion attended by the president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, as well London organising committee chief Sebastian Coe. The choreography and costumes used in the ceremony are based on those of Antiquity.

After giving thanks to the god Apollo, "king of the sun and the idea of light", the flame will be handed over to the first relay runner, Greece’s open water swimming champion, Spyros Gianniotis.

The first two torchbearers were both born in the UK, sons of Greek fathers and British mothers. Spyros Gianniotis, a 32-year-old Liverpool-born swimmer, who won a silver medal for Greece in the 5-kilometer open water event four years ago in Beijing and who will take part in his fourth Games, will hand over to Alex Loukos, a 19-year-old born and raised in the east London borough of Newham, where the Olympic Park is located.

The last flame-bearers in Greece will be the weight-lifter Pyrros Dimas and the Chinese gymnast Li Ning, who lit the cauldron at the last Olympics in Beijing in 2008.

Tomorrow, the Flame will travel to Crete and head to the most eastern part of Greek territory, Megisti. After a 2,900-kilometer journey and passing through 43 cities and towns in Greece, using 490 torchbearers, the flame will be handed to London organizers at Athens’ Panathenian Stadium on May 17th, where the first modern games were staged in 1896.

In contrast to the two previous Summer Games, where the Olympic flame relay went around the globe, it will leave the UK only once, to pass though Dublin on June 6.

The ceremony marks the start of a week-long torch relay, which will take it to five major Greek archaeological sites, including the Acropolis, before it arrives at the old Olympic stadium in Athens, site of the first modern Games in 1896.

A British delegation will receive the flame at a night-time ceremony on May 17. The London Olympic Games torch will tour the United Kingdom and also visit the Republic of Ireland before it arrives at the Olympic Stadium in east London on July 27 to a worldwide television audience of billions.

The London Olympics will be held from July 27 to Aug. 12