Greece prepares a backup flame

ANCIENT OLYMPIA, Greece — Even the gods need a backup plan.

Organizers in Ancient Olympia held an emergency rehearsal Monday to light the flame for the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Games, seizing on a brief break in Greece's stormy weather.

With heavy cloud cover forecast for Wednesday's official lighting ceremony, the flame produced Monday will be kept as a backup. Organizers also relied on a backup flame for the 2024 Paris Games.

An actress portraying an ancient high priestess used a concave mirror to concentrate the sun's rays onto a torch. It took seven seconds to ignite the flame — without artificial means and preserving a tradition inspired by the original Olympic Games dating back 2,800 years.

The flame was lit following a theatrical invocation of Apollo, the ancient god of light. But success depends on simple, unforgiving physics: The mirror must focus direct sunlight to generate the searing temperature needed for ignition. Without it, the method fails.

Olympic organizers said they had been tracking the weather for days, supported by a team from the Greek Meteorological Service, to time the brief window of sunshine.

Updates were relayed every two hours, according to Jochen Farber, head of the Olympic Channel's office in Lausanne, Switzerland.

"The weather forecast is based on mathematical algorithms. There are about 25 to 30 different models used to calculate predictions based on available data," Farber told reporters.

"The weather team also constantly compares the forecasts against actual outcomes," he said. "And that's what guided our decision."

Olympia, 320 kilometers southwest of Athens, was considered sacred ground by the ancient Greeks. Today it serves as the symbolic starting point for every Olympic competition, the flame intended to link the ancient festival and the modern Games.

This year, after a brief tour of Greece, the flame will embark on a 63-day, 12,000 km relay through all 110 Italian provinces, before concluding at Milan's San Siro Stadium on Feb 6.

The Milano-Cortina Games, which run between Feb 6 and 22, will be Italy's third Winter Olympics and the first to be jointly hosted by two cities. They will feature 116 medal events, the debut of ski mountaineering, higher female participation and the return of NHL players to Olympic hockey.

Agencies Via Xinhua