Olympic flame lights up hope for Paris games

The Olympic Flame lighting ceremony ahead of the Paris Olympic Games will take place at the ancient site of Olympia on April 16 in a public event that will be televised live around the world, according to the program announced on Thursday.

The high priestess at the ceremony will be Mary Mina, who will hand over the flame to the first torchbearer, Greek Olympic rowing champion Stefanos Ntouskos.

It will then be carried by some 500 torchbearers on a 2,000-kilometer journey across Greece, culminating on April 26 at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, the site of the first modern Olympics in 1896.

The torch will then set sail to Marseille from Piraeus on board the three-masted Belem, a ship classified as a historical monument since 1984.

The torch will be used to light the Olympic Flame when it arrives in France on May 8, which is just over two and a half months before the Games begin on July 26.