ATHENS (Reuters) -The torch-lighting ceremony next week for the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will be relocated from the ancient stadium in Greece's Olympia to an indoor hall at a nearby museum due to bad weather, organisers said on Sunday.
The torch is traditionally ignited using the sun’s rays and a parabolic mirror in an elaborate outdoor ceremony at the site of the ancient Games, with actresses playing priestesses and appealing to sun god Apollo for his help.
But the area in the western Peloponnese has seen consecutive days of heavy rain, with more on the way ahead of Wednesday's ceremony, forcing organisers to change their plans.
"Due to expected bad weather conditions... the torch-lighting ceremony for the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics will be moved to the interior of the Olympic museum," Greece's Olympic Committee, in charge of the event, said in a statement.
Organisers will use a backup flame, lit during one of the many rehearsals, to light the flame on the day.
It is not the first time that the weather has affected the torch-lighting ceremony or its dress rehearsal but it is the first time in decades that the event itself has been moved to an indoor location.
Following Wednesday's ceremony and after a week-long Greek relay, the flame will be handed over to Milano Games organisers in Athens on December 4 and flown to Italy for the domestic torch relay stretching more than 12,000km across the country.
It will pass through Rome and Venice before reaching Cortina on January 26 for the opening ceremony at Milan's San Siro stadium -- exactly 70 years after the opening ceremony of the 1956 Games in Cortina.
The Italian relay will take in famous landmarks including the Colosseum in Rome and the Grand Canal in Venice, with stops in southern cities such as Palermo and Naples to spark excitement in areas where winter sports are not as prominent.
The journey will conclude in Milan, entering the San Siro stadium on the evening of February 6.
(Reporting by Karolos GrohmannEditing by Toby Davis)
