The Olympic flame is being handed over to the hosts of this year's Summer Games, Paris, after an 11-day journey through Greece.
A ceremony is being held in Athens at the stadium where the first modern Olympics were held in 1896. The Paris Games is just three months away and correspondent Evangelo Sipsas is in Athens for the ceremony.
A ceremony is being held in Athens at the stadium where the first modern Olympics were held in 1896. The Paris Games is just three months away and correspondent Evangelo Sipsas is in Athens for the ceremony.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00It is an exciting time and the weather is very well. The sun is up. It's really helping for this handover ceremony now.
00:08Things are quite quiet at the moment. Just in the next 20 minutes, the first torchbearer will arrive here to hand over that flame.
00:16We're still waiting, but just moments ago, I'm going to turn the camera so you guys can see.
00:19The presidential guard just came on the scene here. You guys can see they're ready to receive the Olympic flame.
00:28They're here standing for that ceremony to take place in about 20 minutes' time from now.
00:33The person with the torch is going to run in here, is going to leave the flame into the Panathinaikos Stadium,
00:40where we're standing in front of outside here in the Greek capital.
00:45I'm going to turn the camera around so you guys can see a little bit more of the people that are in the stands right now.
00:50You can see thousands of people are already in the stands.
00:54They're waiting anxiously for this handover ceremony that takes place every two years.
00:59The flame will arrive here. Then from here, it's going to be handed over into the stadium.
01:03There's going to be a ceremony where people are going to dance. They're going to sing the national anthem of Greece and France.
01:09From there on, the flame itself is going to be traveling back to the port of Piraeus,
01:17where the French vessel Belem will expect it and take it over from the port to the port of Marseille.
01:25We spoke to one of those torchbearers, and this is what they have to say about how they felt of today's ceremony.
01:32It's a great honor for me to be a link in this great chain of roads.
01:36And it's a great honor for me because I have a long history at this stadium.
01:40I've finished here many, many times, and I'm the first Greek woman to have run in the Olympic Games in the marathon.
01:46I'm looking forward to this moment. Great excitement, great joy.