Athens - The torch relay for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games got under way Thursday in Olympia, with a woman playing a high priestess praying to the sun god Apollo at the ancient Olympic stadium lit the silver torch with the sun's rays. Using a concave mirror to reflect the sunlight, Greek actress Maria Nafpliotou, lit the torch in front of the Temple of Hera amid the ruins in Olympia and released a white dove after battling with cloudy skies for several minutes.
"The longest national Olympic torch relay in history will create a spirit of global community and world citizenship ... it will unite us as world citizens, bound by the Olympic values of excellence, friendship and respect," saidInternational Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge.
The ceremony kicked off a seven-day relay across Greece, which will include the country's ski resorts, before the torch is handed over to Vancouver Olympic organizers on October 29 in the Panathenian Stadium, the site of the first modern Olympics in 1896.
"Today marks the start of the 2010 Winter Games and sharing the story of peace and friendship through sport around the globe," Vancouver organizing committee head John Furlong said.
"Lit from a bright day's sun, fuelled by passion and dreams, the relay will end with the dark of night at the opening ceremonies. We are ready to welcome the world," he added.
Several hundred spectators and international dignitaries watched the ancient ceremony from the grassy slopes of the ancient stadium that originally hosted the Olympics.
Holding the silver torch and an olive branch, which symbolizes peace, Vassilis Dimitriadis, a Greek giant-slalom athlete, was the first torchbearer after being presented with the flame by the Greek high priestess.
Dressed in a woolen hat and gloves, Dimitriadis paid tribute to the memorial where the heart of the founder of the modern Games, Pieree de Coubertin, is buried.
During the Greek leg of the relay, an estimated 600 torchbearers will carry the torch, designed an manufactured by Bombardier.
The flame will fly to Canada on October 30 for the biggest-ever domestic relay, beginning in Victoria, British Columbia.
More than 12,000 torchbearers which will cover a distance of 45,000 kilometers in 106 days before the start of the opening ceremony on February 12.
The flame will be carried by various modes of transportation through more than 1,000 communities which include dogsled, Haida canoe, chuck wagon, seaplace, ice resurfacer and double-decker bus and flown as far north as the Alert forestry station in Nunavut.
The ancient lighting ceremony for the Vancouver Olympics was peaceful compared to the previous one held for the Beijing 2008 Games which was disrupted by a series of human rights protests.
Unlike Beijing, Vancouver will only have a national relay after the IOC decided to ban future international relays following the Beijing protests by Tibetan activists.
Canadian organizers have expressed fears, however, that some protests over "native American land" and seal hunting could disrupt the relay.
The Olympics, held every four years, were the most widely attended sporting event in ancient Greece and symbolized a truce between warring cities. They first began in 776 BC and were abolished in 394 AD by the Christian Byzantine Emperor Theodosius.
