Follow the Olympic flame's trip around the world on Twitter
The Olympic flame kicked off a 15-week trip around the globe on Thursday, after it was lit in the birthplace of the games in Ancient Olympia Greece.
A relay of torchbearers will pass the flame across Greece for the next six days. It will then be handed over to Brazilian officials in Athens on April 27.
Spectators around the world can follow the torch's journey from Greece to Brazil, handoff by handoff on the @OlympicFlame Twitter account.
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The torch with pass through hundreds of hands before lighting the cauldron at the Maracanã Olympic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on the evening of Aug. 5.
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After the ceremonial lighting, the flame was passed off to Greek gymnast Eleftherios Petrounias, who then passed it to Brazilian former volleyball player Giovane Gavio.
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International Olympic Committee leaders and Brazilian organizers attending the flame-lighting in the ruins of Ancient Olympia voiced strong confidence that Brazil will stage successful games, despite a political crisis that forced Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff to cancel a scheduled appearance at the ceremony.
IOC President Thomas Bach said Rio will provide "a spectacular stage" for the Olympics.
"These Olympic Games will be a message of hope in troubled times — and indeed the flame will carry this message into all corners of Brazil and, indeed, all the world," he said. "Despite the difficulties that Brazil is facing today, the flame is a timeless reminder that we are all part of the same humanity."
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Bach said 98 percent of all infrastructure is ready and the test events are going well, adding that he is "very confident" on the games' success.
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In a nod to the global refugee crisis, the Greek leg will include a stop at a camp in Athens that is home to 1,500 refugees and migrants trapped in Greece — one of whom will participate in the relay — while a young Syrian boy from another camp will accompany the torchbearer in a small town just north of Olympia.
For the first time at the Rio Games, the IOC will allow a group of 5-10 refugee athletes to participate, marching behind the Olympic flag at the opening ceremony. IOC officials say there are 42 potential participants, and the final selection will be made in June.
Additional information from the Associated Press.
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Topics Olympics
Megan Specia was Mashable's Assistant Real-Time News Editor and joined the team in September 2014. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism & Mass Communications from the University of New Hampshire after growing up in the Jersey 'burbs. She made her way to New York via a four year stopover in Dublin. Megan previously worked as a journalist and editor at Storyful in both Dublin and New York. Before all of that, though, her claim to fame was as head cake arranger and purveyor of all things sweet at Queen of Tarts cafe in Dublin, where she developed a serious addiction to macarons.
