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Olympic torch for Rio Games lit at ancient Greek site

The torch will now begin a six-day relay across Greece, passing through the town of Marathon.

By :  amrit sadhana
Update: 2016-04-21 10:46 GMT
The Olympic flame for the Rio Games was lit in ancient Olympia in Greece on Thursday, launching the torch relay for the first-ever South American Games that have been overshadowed by Brazil's political crisis. (Photo:AP)
The flame is due to arrive in Brazil on May 3 for a 100-day relay across the country, travelling through 500 cities and villages in every Brazilian state. It will be carried by about 12,000 torch bearers. (Photo: AP)
The ritual was established eight decades ago for the Berlin Games. (Photo: AP)
Preparations in Rio have been overshadowed by a government crisis, with President Dilma Rousseff facing impeachment after being accused of juggling government accounts to disguise budget shortfalls during her 2014 reelection. (Photo: AP)
Actress Katerina Lehou, right, as high priestess, lights a pot with the Olympic Flame, during the final dress rehearsal of the lighting of the Olympic flame at Ancient Olympia, in western Greece. (Photo: AP)
The IOC has also announced that a team of up to 10 refugees will take part at the Rio Olympics. (Photo: AP)
A UN refugee agency source said it will be a Syrian man who lost his leg in the civil war, and has been living and working in Athens after being granted asylum in Greece. (Photo: AP)
In Greece, in a gesture to the greatest migration crisis facing Europe since World War II, the torch will pass on April 26 through the refugee camp of Eleonas in Athens, where one of the hundreds of refugees housed there will carry the flame. (Photo: AP)
Overall, some 12,000 torchbearers will carry the flame through Brazil. (Photo: AP)
The four-month Olympic torch relay will cross part of Greece and scores of Brazilian cities before it arrives at Rio's Maracana Stadium for the August 5 Games opening ceremony. (Photo: AP)
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said the Rio Games would go ahead \"in a world shaken by crises\" but added that \"these Olympic Games will be a message of hope in troubled times -- and the flame will carry this message into all corners of Brazil, and indeed, all the world.\" (Photo: AP)
The torch will now begin a six-day relay across Greece, passing through the town of Marathon.

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