Paris Olympics flame kindled at Greek cradle of ancient games
ANCIENT OLYMPIA, Greece — Even without the help of Apollo, the flame that is to burn at the Paris Olympics was kindled Tuesday at the site of the ancient games in southern Greece.
Cloudy skies prevented the traditional lighting, when an actress dressed as an ancient Greek priestess uses the sun to ignite a silver torch — after offering up a symbolic prayer to Apollo, the ancient Greek sun god.
Instead, she used a backup flame that had been lit on the same spot Monday, during the final rehearsal.
Normally, the foremost of a group of priestesses in long, pleated dresses dips the fuel-filled torch into a parabolic mirror which focuses the sun’s rays on it, and fire spurts forth.
But this time she didn’t even try, going straight for the backup flame, kept in a copy of an ancient Greek pot. Ironically, a few minutes later the sun shone forth.
From the ancient stadium in Olympia, a relay of torchbearers will carry the flame along a 3,100-mile route through Greece, including several islands, until the handover to Paris Games organizers in Athens on April 26.
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said the flame lighting 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 on the rise, people are fed up with all the hate, the aggression and negative news,” he said. “We are longing for something which brings us together; something that is unifying; something that gives us hope.”
Thousands of spectators from all over the world packed Olympia for Tuesday’s event amid the ruined temples and sports grounds where the ancient games were held from 776 B.C.-393 A.D.
The sprawling site, in a lush valley by the confluence of two rivers, is at its prettiest in the spring, teeming with pink-flowering Judas trees, small blue irises and the occasional red anemone.
Greek authorities maintained high security around Olympia on Tuesday, after protests by rights activists disrupted the lighting ceremonies for the Beijing summer and winter games. Armed police stopped incoming vehicles and checked for explosives, while sniffer dogs combed the grounds.
The first torchbearer was Greek rower Stefanos Douskos, a gold medalist in 2021 in Tokyo. He ran to a nearby monument that contains the heart of French Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the driving force behind the modern revival of the games.