News The Rio 2016 Olympic torch and the route of the relay that will carry the flame to the opening ceremony at the Maracanã Stadium will be revealed on Friday 3 July in Brasília, the capital of Brazil, at a special ceremony attended by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Rio 2016 president Arthur Nuzman and a host of sports stars A special moment on the road to Rio, the torch launch will also usher in a new chapter in a centuries old tradition, which will be brought to South America for the first time The Olympic flame harks back to the eighth century BC, when the ancient Greeks first began staging the Games in Olympia They considered fire to be a divine element and kept perpetual flames burning in front of their principal temples To ensure its purity, the Olympic flame was lit from the sun’s rays, using a type of mirror called a skaphia that converged the rays onto one point  This tradition is upheld today, when the flame is lit in front of the Temple of Hera in Olympia, between 90 and 100 days before the start of the Games The Hellenic (Greek) Olympic Committee organises this ritual, which features a high priestess using the flame to light the torch of the first of the relay runners who will take it to the ancient Panathinaiko stadium that was used for the 1896 Games, the first of the modern era From Athens to the host city, the Games organising committee takes over, choosing a route and theme that reflect its culture and vision Although a symbolic flame was used during the Amsterdam 1928 Games, the first torch relay – with the flame lit in Olympia and transported to the Olympic Stadium in the host city – took place for the Berlin 1936 Games   The torch relay seeks to replicate the message carried by the runners who proclaimed the Olympic truce during ancient times, and this was a particularly poignant theme for the London 1948 Games, which sought to bring together the world after the Second World War The first runner, Corporal Dimitrelis, took off his military uniform before carrying the flame and festivities were organised to celebrate the return of peace The Rome 1960 relay was the first to be televised and closely followed by the media, while the 1968 Mexico City relay retraced the steps of Christopher Columbus to the New World The Sydney 2000 relay passed through 12 Oceanic countries before Aboriginal hockey player Nova Peris Kneebon started the Australian section at Ayers Rock and one million people greeted its arrival in the host city The Rio 2016 Olympic torch relay will visit every state in Brazil, carried 20,000km by 10,000 torchbearers, before the flame is used to light the Olympic cauldron in the Maracanã Stadium for the start of the first edition of the Games in South America, on 5 August 2016