Even today, residents of Olympia will tell you that the flame of the Games is life itself, lit at the same site during the ancient Olympics.

Greek actresses play priestesses and carry the Olympic flame, lit with a concave mirror, to the stadium near the Temple of Hera in Ancient Olympia yesterday, where the ancient Games first started in 776 BC. [Agencies]

The Olympic flame had been lit on an altar east of the Temple of Hera since 776 BC. Ancient Greeks also kindled the flame on a cauldron during the Games to honor their god Zeus, while additional fires were set up at temples for him and his wife, Hera.

While the modern Olympics restarted on April 6, 1896, the Olympic flame was not introduced to the event until the 1928 Games in Amsterdam. It has become a highlight of the modern Games since.

The Olympic torch relay is also not a tradition in ancient Greece - it was invented by Dr Carl Diem, a German who planned the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

The 3,075 km torch relay started on July 20, 1936, in the ancient Olympic stadium. Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Games, addressed the occasion with a historic speech.

The Olympic torch first came to Asia in the 1964 Tokyo Games.

Four years later, Mexican athlete Norma Enriqueta Basilio became the first woman to light the Olympic cauldron with the Olympic flame. In 2000, the first global torch relay started from the Sydney Games.

Runners usually carry the flame, but it has been transported in many different ways. The torch traveled by boat in 1948 across the English Channel, and it was first transported by plane in 1952, when the fire traveled to Helsinki.

In one remarkable instance, the flame in 1976 was transformed into an electronic pulse from Athens and beamed by satellite to Canada, where a laser beam was used to re-light the flame.

In 2000, divers carried the torch underwater near the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. It has even been carried on a Native American canoe, horseback, camel and the Concorde.

Fresh flames

The "High Priestess", played by Athens-born actress Maria Nafpliotou, lit the flame of the Beijing Olympics at 5:45 pm Beijing time yesterday. Nafpliotou became the ninth High Priestess to light the flame for the summer Olympics.

Nafpliotou was a surprise candidate for the plum role of the lighting ceremony, when ceremony organizers in Athens insisted on making an exception by inviting members outside the traditional priestess team.

The Greek Olympic Committee introduced Nafpliotou as a new element in adherence to the "New Beijing, Great Olympics" slogan of the Beijing Games organizers.