2016 Rio Olympics Games Flame Lit at Ancient Olympia in Greece Thursday April 21,2016

 

Rio 2016 Olympic flame is lit at temple of Hera in Greece

The Olympic flame for the Rio Games was lit in ancient Olympia in Greece on Thursday April 21,2016, launching the torch relay for the first-ever South American Games that have been overshadowed by Brazil's political crisis.

An actor performing the role of high priestess lit the torch by using the sun's rays. 

The torch will be taken by various runners on an international relay that will culminate at the opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro on August 05,2016

The ritual was established 80 years ago for the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, based on a ceremony in Ancient Olympia where games were held for more than 1,000 years. 

Actor Katerina Lehou, who lit the torch, offered a mock prayer to Apollo, the old Greek god of light and music, at Thursday's ceremony.

Wearing a long pleated robe, she knelt solemnly to the ground and lit the torch within a few seconds by using a concave mirror to catch the sunlight.

Olympic flame first torchbearer, Greek gymnast Eleftherios Petrounias

 

 

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said the Rio Games would go ahead "in a world shaken by crises" but added that "these Olympic Games will be a message of hope in troubled times -- and the flame will carry this message into all corners of Brazil, and indeed, all the world."

The four-month Olympic torch relay will cross part of Greece and scores of Brazilian cities before it arrives at Rio's Maracana Stadium for the August 05,2016 Games opening ceremony.

Overall, some 12,000 torchbearers will carry the flame through Brazil.

In Greece, in a gesture to the greatest migration crisis facing Europe since World War II, the torch will pass on April 26,2016 through the refugee camp of Eleonas in Athens, where one of the hundreds of refugees housed there will carry the flame.

Brazilian organisers will receive the flame in a handover at the Panathenian stadium on April 27,2016in Athens, site of the first modern Olympics, and will start their relay on May 03,2016 in the capital Brasília, ending in Rio for the opening ceremony.