On April 21, the ceremony of lighting the flame for the 2016 Olympic Games took place in Greece on the ruins of Olympia on the Greek Peloponnese peninsula.

After the ceremony, the first stage of the relay began on the roads of Greece. The world champion in gymnastics Eleftherios Pertunias became the first torchbearer of the 2016 Olympic Games.          

Spiking before the beginning of the ceremony, the International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach called the Olympic flame a symbol of peace, goodness and human values. “Three thousand years ago, the first game was held exactly here”, he said. “We are grateful to Greece and Greeks for what you have given this festival and the Olympic values to the world. The Olympic Games are our message to the world at large. The lighting of Olympic flame is a point to connect the past and future. When the world is facing crises, the Olympic Games are a symbol of union and peace. Today we are writing history as the Olympics will be held in South America for the first time. We are sure that Rio de Janeiro having the support in the whole of Brazil will hold a great Game”.

On May 3, the national stage of the relay began in Brazil, in the country’s capital, the city of Brasilia, and end in Rio de Janeiro on the opening day of the Olympic Games on August 5. In 95 days, the Olympic torch relay will overcome the distance of 20 thousand kilometers by land and 10 thousand miles by air, visiting 329 towns in Brazil. A total of 12 thousand torchbearers will attend in the relay.

The ritual of lightning the Olympic flame goes back to the ancient Greek Olympics, as a reminder of the famous legend of the titan Prometheus, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to the mankind. However, the today’s version of this tradition was born only at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam in 1928, when the Olympic flame began to blaze on the main arena of the Games for the first time, and for the first time also in modern history, Olympic torch relay was held before the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936.

The XXXI Summer Olympic Games will be held in Rio de Janeiro from 5 to 21 August 2016 and Paralympic Games a few weeks later, from 7 to 18 September.

June, 2016