Olympic flame begins journey to games in Salt Lake City

ANCIENT OLYMPIA, Greece -- The flame that will burn at the 2002 Winter Games began its long journey to Salt Lake City on Monday after a ceremony held among the ruins where the Olympics were born.

Cloudy skies and sporadic showers prevented the flame from being lighted during the ceremony. The flame is ignited in a concave mirror by the sun's rays in the mountains around the Olympics' ancient birthplace. The ceremony is set amid the temples of Hera and Zeus, the main gods once honored at this sanctuary.

"The fire of the Olympians inspires us, lifts us. These athletes ignite a fire within those who experience the inevitable Olympic moments of the Olympic Games," Mitt Romney, head of the Salt Lake City organizers, said after the flame lighting ceremony. "It will light our way."

Romney was accompanied by Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, United States Olympic Committee President Sandy Baldwin and her Greek counterpart, Lambis Nikolaou.

"Its a moment we have long waited for, the beginning of a long trail to Salt Lake City," Leavitt said.

During the ceremony, Greek actress Thalia Prokopiou, in her role as high priestess, used a flame burning in a clay urn to officiate at the ceremony. The flame had been lighted in the mirror on Friday and Saturday in the presence of Salt Lake City officials.

Greek officials worried about bad weather did not even try to use a torch to light the flame in the mirror. The sun briefly shone through the clouds shortly before the ceremony, but it was raining when the relay began.

It was the third Games in a row that the torch has failed to light during the official ceremony. Clouds prevented the torch lighting for the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 1998 Nagano Winter Games.

Prokopiou used the jar to light the Salt Lake City torch in another ceremony at a nearby grove dedicated to Pierre de Coubertin, the French baron who revived the Olympics more than 100 years ago. The first torch was carried by Lefteris Fafalis, a Greek cross-country skier.

Greek runners will relay the torch to a ski center near the ancient ruins of Delphi before it is taken to Athens today. It will burn in the all-marble Panathenian stadium, site of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, until it leaves for Atlanta on Dec. 3.