2004 Olympic Torch Relay route unveiled

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, November 28, 2003

2004 Olympic Torch Relay route unveiled

According to the plan, which was presented at a special event at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games Organizing Committee (ATHOC) headquarters on Wedensday, the Torch will travel globally before returning to the country that gave birth to the Olympics.

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Greece has unveiled a plan for Olympic Torch Relay route for 2004.

According to the plan, which was presented at a special event at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games Organizing Committee (ATHOC) headquarters on Wedensday, the Torch will travel globally before returning to the country that gave birth to the Olympics.

Presenting the route, ATHOC head Gianna Angelopoulos underlined that it was the first truly global Olympic Torch Relay in the history of the Games, taking in all the five continents symbolized by the five Olympic Rings and for the first time including Africa and Latin America.

The flame will be lit in ancient Olympia on March 25, 2004 - the anniversary of the first modern Olympics held in Athens in 1896 - and then travel through the Peloponnese and the Saronic islands to the Panathenian "Kallimarmaron" stadium in Athens, where it will remain until June 4.

That date marks the start of the international Olympic Torch Relay, which will last 35 days and pass through 34 cities, including past host-cities of the summer Olympics, cities with symbolic importance like Lausanne, the seat of the IOC, and Beijing, host-city for the 2008 Games.

Some 3,600 torch bearers will carry the Olympic Torch on its travels, each for a distance of about 400 meters, while an estimated 260 million people around the world will have the opportunity to see the Olympic Torch pass through their city. It will travel a total of 78,000 kilometers before returning to Greece in July.

The Torch Relay will then continue within Greece, passing through all 54 Greek prefectures in the hands of 7,700 torch bearers, before it returns to Athens on August 13 for the opening ceremony of the Games.

IOC President Jacques Rogge hailed the Athens Olympics Torch Relay as a "unique opportunity in the life of the Olympic Movement", noting that the Games traveled to the entire world before returning to the country of their birth and that the Olympic Torch would now do the same.

Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos, whose ministry has a key role in preparations for the Athens Games, announced that President of the Republic Kostis Stephanopoulos would be present at the torch-lighting ceremony in Olympia on March 25, a ceremony that will symbolically link the ancient Olympics and the memory of the first of the modern Olympics, with ancient Olympia at its center.

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