Please check your preferences. You can change them at any time
Original colours
|
High contrast
|
After travelling around its spiritual homeland of Greece, the torch will visit the United Nations and International Olympic Committee in Switzerland before embarking on its journey to Brazil
On the first day of the relay, the torch visited Zakynthos, an island in the Ionian Sea mentioned by Homer thousands of years ago (visitgreece.gr)
Following the lighting of the Olympic flame on Thursday (21 April) at Olympia, the Rio 2016 Olympic Torch has begun a journey that will take it around the shores of Greece and to the mountains of Switzerland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean for Brazil and its final destination – Rio de Janeiro.
After the lighting ceremony at the Temple of Hera in Olympia, the torch relay headed to Pyrgos where a cauldron was lit by the junior world record holder in the pole vault, Emmouil Karalis. The torch then moved on to Amaliada and the archaeological site of Ilida, which played an important part in the history of the ancient Games. Thousands of people welcomed the flame carrying Greek and Brazilian flags.
On Friday (22 April) the second day of the relay began from the beautiful island of Zakynthos and visited a series of historic towns in the Peloponnese peninsula and in western Greece including Mesolonghi, where English romantic poet Lord Byron died during the Greek War of Independence.
Over the weekend the torch relay will visit the island of Corfu and then move north and east, travelling through the region of Macedonia and then to Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city.
Next week, the relay will take the torch to the historic town of Marathon, from where the Olympic race takes its name. On Tuesday (26 April) the torch will be carried up the magnificent rock of the Acropolis in Athens and visit the Parthenon, the temple of the goddess Athena that has looked down on the Greek capital for nearly 2,500 years.
In Athens, the torch will be borne by Ibrahim Al-Hussein, a Syrian refugee. Al-Hussein, who lost part of his right leg in a bomb attack in 2012, will carry the Olympic flame through the Eleonas refugee and migrant camp.
The Olympic torch will be formally handed over to Brazil at a ceremony next Wednesday (27 April) at the Panathinaiko Stadium in the Greek capital, the venue for the historic 1896 Olympic Games that launched the modern Olympic movement.
After the handover ceremony, the Rio 2016 Olympic torch will leave Greece and travel to Switzerland, for a special ceremony at the United Nations in Geneva on 28 April. It will then go on display at the Olympic Museum in nearby Lausanne, home to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The torch will begin its Brazilian journey in the capital Brasília on 3 May. Over the course of the following 95 days, some 12,000 people will carry the torch across the entire country. On the evening of 5 August, after visiting every state capital and over 300 towns, the torch will arrive at the climax of the opening ceremony at the Maracanã Stadium, where it will be used to light the Olympic cauldron for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Rio 2016 Olympic Torch Relay to showcase diverse beauty of Brazil
