MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. The Lighting the Flame ceremony for the 25th Winter Olympic Games will take place in Ancient Olympia on November 26. The 2026 Winter Olympic Games will be held in Italy, in the cities of Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo. The event will take place from February 6-22, 2026.

TASS Factbox editors have compiled key facts and figures about the Olympic Flame.

History

The ritual of lighting the Olympic Flame dates back to the ancient Olympic Games in Greece. It is a reminder of the legend of titan Prometheus, who stole fire from the Gods and gave it to human beings as a gift. During the ancient Olympic Games, the Flame was kept burning in the sanctuaries of Zeus, Hera and Hestia, located in Olympia (a small town in Elis on the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece).

The Olympic Flame, symbolizing peace and unity, is one of the main ceremonial elements of the modern Olympic Games. The modern tradition was revived in 1928, at the 9th Summer Olympic Games in Amsterdam (the Netherlands), when the Olympic flame was for the first time lit by an employee of a local electric company in the cauldron of the Marathon Tower at the main stadium. Four years later, the ceremony took place during the opening of the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles (California, the United States).

The Olympic torch relay was organized for the first time in 1936, on the eve of the Summer Olympic Games in Berlin (Germany). The initiator of this event was Secretary General of the Berlin Summer Games Organizing Committee Carl Diem. The ceremony of lighting the Flame with the use of a parabolic mirror took place on July 20 at the archaeological complex of Olympia, after which the torch relay passed via the territories of Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany. The torch relay covered a distance of over 3,000 kilometers (over 1,860 miles) and involved over 3,000 torchbearers. German runner Fritz Schilgen lit the cauldron at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin in the final of the torch relay.

Lighting ceremony of the Olympic flame

Today, the lighting of the Olympic Flame in Greece is a traditional event that precedes torch relays ahead of the Summer and Winter Games. As a rule, actresses dressed as Greek priestesses perform the ceremony. An actress dressed as an ancient Greek High Priestess sets a torch on fire, which is kindled by the light of the Sun, its rays concentrated by a parabolic mirror. In addition to the main torch, special lanterns are also lit in Olympia for the purpose if storing the flame in case the main torch (or even the flame during the Games) goes out for unforeseen reasons. It is expected that on November 26, 2025, due to the forecast poor weather, the ceremony will take place not in the open air, but in the Archaeological Museum of Olympia.

Since 1936, a new unique torch is designed for each Olympic Games. In most cases, its designers are artists and sculptors from the host country of the Games.

Olympic Flame’s route

During the relay, the flame is delivered to the city hosting the Olympic Games. As a rule, famous athletes, artists, scientists, and public figures are the torchbearers in the course of the relay. In case the relay’s route stipulates carrying the Flame by aircraft it is transported not by the torch but in special closed lanterns. In the host country of the Games, the relay route usually stretches along significant cities and natural attractions. For instance, on the eve of the 22nd Winter Olympic Games in 2014 in Sochi (Russia), the Flame was taken to the top of Mount Elbrus and to the bottom of Lake Baikal. On the opening day of the Olympics, a flame is lit in a special cauldron, which can be located both at the stadium hosting the Games and outside it. The Flame in the cauldron is lit by the final bearer of the torch, usually a prominent athlete or athletes. At the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow the cauldron was lit by Olympic champion in basketball Sergey Belov and at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi the flame was lit by three-time Olympic champions - figure skater Irina Rodnina and ice hockey player Vladislav Tretiak. The Flame in the cauldron is put out during the closing ceremony of the Games.

The flame for the Winter Olympics was first lit in the city of Garmisch-Partenkirchen (Germany), which hosted the 1936 Games. At that time, it had not yet been delivered from Greece for the Winter Games. The flame for the Winter Olympic Games in Oslo (Norway, 1952) and Squaw Valley (California, the United States, 1960) was lit in the village of Morgedal (Norway), and for the Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo (Italy, 1956) - in Rome. In Greece, the ceremony was held for the first time only on the eve of the 1964 Winter Olympics. The Flame was transported by plane to Vienna (Austria), from where it was taken to Innsbruck, which hosted the Games.