Greek actress Mary Mina, playing the role of high priestess, lit the torch using a backup flame instead of a parabolic mirror due to cloudy skies for the start of a relay in Greece and France. The relay will culminate with the lighting of the Olympic flame in the French capital at the opening ceremony.
Hundreds of dignitaries and spectators are attending the ritual in the small Peloponnese town in southwestern Greece where the Olympics were born in 776 BCE, and where the ceremony is held every two years for the summer and winter Olympics.
