Pyrros Dimas lights the Olympic Flame in Athens
Three times Οlympic Gold Medallist Pyrros Dimas accompanied by his children lit the cauldron with the Olympic Flame in front of Parthenon temple atop of the Acropolis Hill in Athens on Tuesday, April 26, 2016.
After traveling Greece for six days, the Rio 2016 Olympic Torch arrived on Tuesday at the Acropolis in Athens.
The cauldron at the Acropolis Museum was lit by the secretary general of the Hellenic Olympic Committee, Manolis Katsiadakis. The sacred light had crossed the Acropolis in the hands of the Olympic champion Pyrros Dimas, Voula Kozomboli, Georgia Ellinaki, Aggeliki Karapataki, Evi Moraitidou, Virginia Kravarioti and Nikos Deligiannis. The President of the International Olympic Academy Isidoros Kouvelos carried the Olympic Flame at Dionysiou Areopagitou Street.
Dimitris Valasiadis, Hellenic Weightlifting Federation President was one of the 450 people to carry the torch in Greece.
The Olympic Flame will remain overnight at the Acropolis Museum until Wednesday, April 27, when it will be formally handed over to Brazil at a ceremony at the Panathenian Stadium in Athens, the venue for the historic 1896 Olympic Games that launched the modern Olympic movement.
The flame arrives in Brazil on May 3, and will be relayed across the vast country by about 12,000 torchbearers before the Aug. 5 opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana Stadium. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
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