Cathy Freeman stands beneath the Olympic flame in Sydney (© Getty Images)
Australia’s Cathy Freeman, the Olympic women’s 400m champion, who lit the Olympic stadium flame four years ago in Sydney will be one of the many celebrity bearers of the Olympic flame in the 2004 Olympic torch relay.
The lighting of the Olympic flame for this summer’s Athens Games will take place in Olympia at 12-noon local time today in the Temple of Hera of Ancient Olympia, and the flame will be lit in accordance with the ancient ritual, using the sun’s rays captured with the aid of a concave mirror.
The President of the Greek Republic will be present
A 32-year-old actress, Thalia Prokopiou, will, for the third time in her career, play the role of the high priestess surrounded by a group of vestal virgins. Among the personalities present will be the President of the Greek Republic, Costis Stephanopoulos, the President of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, and the President of the Games Organising Committee (ATHOC), Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki.
Once lit, the torch will be handed to Greek javelin thrower Kostas Gatsioudis, silver medallist at the World Championships in Seville in 1999, who will run to the place where the heart of Frenchman Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Games, lies just a few hundred metres from the site.
Continuing on its initial 365km route, the flame will reach Athens on 31 March to be placed in the 1896 Olympic marble stadium by Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou, 29, who was the Olympic 100m silver medallist at the Sydney Games. There the flame will rest for just over two months.
Freeman takes first hold of torch on the relay’s dash across five continents
It will leave again on 4 June for Sydney, where Australia’s Olympic women’s 400m champion Cathy Freeman will be the first to take hold of the flame, having also been the final carrier of the Olympic torch when the flame was lit in Stadium Australia four years ago. Other Australian sporting greats such as Dawn Fraser, Herb Elliott, Ron Clarke and Betty Cuthbert will also run with the flame.
Australia will be the first stage of a long journey for the flame during which it will be carried by more than 11,000 torchbearers, of whom 6500 will be in Greece, each running between 300 and 500 metres.
First began at the 1936 Olympics
The torch relay, established at the Berlin Games in 1936, will, for the first time, travel across all five continents, visiting Africa (Cairo and Cape Town) and South America (Rio de Janeiro).
The journey will last some 78 days. Outside Greece the Flame will travel for 35 days, covering a distance of approximately 78.000 km, 1.500 of which in the hands of 3.600 Torchbearers. A total of 260 million people will have the opportunity to see the Flame in their city. For the first time in history the Olympic Torch Relay will bring the Flame to Africa and Latin America.
The Flame will reach all past Olympic cities, bringing them once again the light and joy of the Olympic celebration. It will also pass through cities with special symbolic meaning, such as Brussels, heart of the European Union, Lausanne, seat of the International Olympic Committee, and Beijing, host city of the next Olympiad.
IOC and ATHOC
