Olympic flame for Winter Games lit

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8320323.stm

The Olympic flame for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver has been lit.

The sun shone just enough over the fallen temples at the birthplace of the ancient Olympics on Thursday for a Greek actress in a pagan priestess' white gown and sandals to focus its rays on a silver torch using a concave mirror.

The flame will burn at the Vancouver Games in February, following a torch relay across Canada and a shorter run in Greece.

Bad weather disrupted the ceremony for the 2000 Sydney Summer Games, and the past three Winter Olympics - in Turin in 2006, Salt Lake City in 2002 and Nagano in 1998.

Watch the Video

Priestess dance during the lighting ceremony for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games
at the ancient stadium of Olympia, western Greece,
on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis) (Associated Press)


Greek actress Maria Nafpliotou, who plays the role of high priestess,
lights the torch of the Olympic flame during the lighting ceremony
for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games at the temple of Hera in Ancient Greece.
(Associated Press)


Greek actress Maria Nafpliotou, who plays the role of high priestess, right, raises the torch
as Ino Menegaki holds the pot with the flame during the Olympic flame lighting ceremony
for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games. (Associated Press)


Greek actress Maria Nafpliotou, who plays the role of high priestess, left,
gives the flame to the first torchbearer Greek champion of giant slalom Vassilis Dimitriadis
during the lighting ceremony for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games.(Associated Press)


Greek actress Ino Menegaki, who plays the role of priestess, holds the Olympic flame
during the lighting ceremony for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games,
at the temple of Hera in Ancient Olympia, western Greece. (Associated Press)


Priestesses follow the flame during the lighting ceremony for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games
at the temple of Hera in Ancient Olympia, western Greece, on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009.
(Associated Press)

The first torchbearer Greek champion of giant slalom Vassilis Dimitriadis
runs with the torch during the lighting ceremony for the
Vancouver 2010 Winter Games at the ancient stadium of Olympia, western Greece.
(Associated Press)

Photograph by: John Koles, Reuters