Olmypia: Winter Games 2018: Olympic Fire Arrived in Pyeongchang

The Greek Olympic Committee handed over the Olympic torch to the South Korean Organising Committee 101 days before the opening of the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang/South Korea.

Spyros Capralos, President of the Greek Olympic Committee, handed over the torch Lee Hee Beom, South Korean President of the Pyeongchang Organizing Committee. The ceremony at the Panathinaiko Stadium, where the first Olympic Games were held in 1896, was also attended by the Greek President Prokopios Pavlopoulos.

On Tuesday, the flame will be taken by plane to South Korea, 8500 km away. From the city of Incheon, which is home to over a million people, the flame will be ignited from the 1st century BC. The host country of the 23rd World Cup will hold the remaining 100 days until the opening ceremony on November 23rd. Olympic Winter Games.

“The slogan of the Olympic torch relay,’ Let everyone shine’, means that the Olympic flame will shine for every dream, passion and future, anytime, anywhere,”said Lee.

Last Tuesday, the Olympic bonfire was lit in the Holy Grove of the Ancient Olympics in Greece in the presence of the German IOC President Thomas Bach. Since then, the flame has traveled 2129 kilometres over Greek soil and was carried by 505 torchbearers before arriving at the Acropolis in Athens on Monday evening.

The IOC and the Olympic movement are in difficult times. In addition to the exacerbated political situation on the Korean peninsula and the resulting security concerns of some prominent athletes, the IOC must continue to address the state doping scandal in Russia as well as the corruption affair surrounding Carlos Arthur Nuzman, head of the organization of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.