Ancient Olympia: The Olympic flame was lit in Ancient Olympia in Greece on Thursday, in a solemn ceremony filled with mystery and tradition that signals the final countdown to the start of this year's summer Games in London.
Actors in ancient Greek costume invoked the god Apollo in the ruins of the 2,600-year-old Temple of Hera, using a concave mirror to harness the sun's rays and kindle a flame on the torch for a relay that will take it around Greece and Britain.
Dignitaries at the ceremony included the president of the International Olympic Committee Jacques Rogge, as well as the head of the London organising committee, Sebastian Coe.
'We promise to protect the flame, to cherish its traditions and stage an uplifting torch relay of which we can be proud,' Coe said in a speech, vowing the event would 'lift the spirits and hopes of people across Britain and across the world'.
After thanks to the god Apollo, 'king of the sun and the idea of light', in the shadow of the Greek, British and Olympic flags, the flame was handed to the first relay runner, Greece's Liverpool-born open water swimming champion Spyros Gianniotis.
He then passed it to 19-year-old British boxer Alexander Loukos, whose father hails from the Greek island of Lesbos and grew up in the east London borough where the Olympic Stadium is situated.
Gianniotis said after the full rehearsal at the temple on Wednesday that the torch .