The Olympic flame will once again be lit in an empty stadium on Monday as it starts its truncated journey to Beijing for the Winter Games in February. Like the ceremony in March 2020 to light the flame for Tokyo, and like those Games, which were put back a year, Monday's ceremony is a victim of
coronavirus restrictions.
"Due to the situation created by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Lighting
Ceremony will be held in strict compliance with local health protocols," the
Hellenic Olympic Committee announced in September.
The ceremony is conducted at the ruins of the Temple of Hera in Olympia,
site of the ancient Greek games from eighth century BC to the fourth century
AD.
Clear skies are forecast for 11.30 local time (0830 GMT) when the flame is
due to be lit by the rays of the sun concentrated in a concave.
Priestess Xanthi Georgiou will light the torch from the flames.
Before the pandemic, the flame had been lit behind closed doors once, in
1984, when Greek organisers wanted to protest against the decision of the Los
Angeles organisers to accept sponsorship of stretches of the torch relay in
the United States.
This time the ceremony will be held in front of an audience limited to the
members of the International Olympic Committee, the Greek and Chinese Olympic
committees as well as the president of Greece, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, and
vaccinated members of the media.
While Greek skiers will run the first and last legs, and a Chinese
participant will also carry the torch in a brief relay, organisers have
decided to skip the usual journey round the country.
"There will be no Torch Relay on Greek soil and following the Lighting
Ceremony in Ancient Olympia the Olympic Flame will be transferred to the
Acropolis where it will stay overnight," they said on October 12.
They said that on the next morning it would be carried to the Panathenaic
Stadium in Athens, a second-century arena used in both the 1896 and 2004
Games, and handed over to the delegation from Beijing 2022 to be flown to
China.
Traditionally, the flame travels hundreds of kilometres round Greece,
visiting fifty cities and archaeological sites, relayed by artists and
athletes from around the world.
In March 2020, as coronavirus began to spread round Greece, spectators
ignored health precautions and flocked to the relay.
It was abandoned on the second day after leaving Olympia in nearby Sparta,
where crowds gathered to cheer Greek-American actor Billy Zane, best known
for "Titanic", and British actor Gerard Butler, who played King Leonidas of
Sparta in the movie "300".
This year the rehearsal on Sunday falls on the 100th anniversary of the
creation of the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee which
is holding ceremonies to celebrate.