Indicating the official start of the Beijing Olympic torch relay, the lighting ceremony for the Beijing Olympic torch will be held in Ancient Olympia, Greece on March 24 as scheduled.

Intensified and orderly preparations for the event are underway, an official of the Greek Olympic Committee was quoted by Xinhua as saying.

As a tradition, the torch lighting ceremony is held in front of the Temple of Hera of Ancient Olympia. Starting out from Olympia, 605 Greek torchbearers run a distance of 1,528km in Greece to relay the torch for seven days. The relay will pass through 16 regions and 43 cities, in addition to four communities, with 29 celebration events along the route. At 3:00pm on March 30, the flame arrives at Panathenian Stadium in central Athens, where the first modern Olympic Games took place in 1896. On March 24, 2008, the Greek Olympic Committee will hold the ceremony to hand the flame over to the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG).

For the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, the flame was lit in front of the Temple of Hera, the site of Ancient Olympia, with an ensuing Olympic torch relay. Since then, the tradition has been carried out for a total of 16 Olympic Summer Games.

The torch lighting for the Olympic Winter Games was first held in 1964 in front of the monument to Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games. So far 12 Winter Games have had their flames lit at Ancient Olympia in a ceremony similar to that of the Summer Games, with the same artists playing the part of the priestesses.

With the stadium, arena, the athletes' dormitory and religious service facilities such as the altars of Zeus and Hera in place, the site of Ancient Olympia hosted the ancient Olympic Games between 2700 BC and 1600 BC. Afterwards, the site fell into ruins as a result of religious conflicts, earthquakes and robberies.

(BOCOG March 12, 2008)