Torch relay

Athens will experience phased traffic disruptions on Sunday, due to the 4th Marathon Torch Relay, IASON 23, aimed at promoting organ donation and transplants.

Vehicle restrictions will be in effect from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. along key routes, including the right lane heading toward Marathon.

The Olympic torch relay began in Marseille on Thursday with football legend Basile Boli taking the flame in front of the iconic basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde, a day after it made a spectacular entrance by sea.

The Olympic flame reached Marseille, just outside the Old Port, amid tight security on Wednesday, 79 days before the Paris 2024 Games Opening Ceremony.

"Marseille is the ideal spot to create memories."

Florent Manaudou, France's 2012 Olympic men's 50 metres freestyle swimming champion, will light the cauldron shortly after 1730 GMT in the presence of President Emmanuel Macron.

The Belem made its first voyage in 1896, just a few weeks after the first modern Olympic Games had finished in Athens.

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games flame will be lit on April 16, marking the countdown to the July 26-Aug. 11 event in the French capital, organisers said on Friday, confirming an earlier Reuters story.

The flame will be lit at Greece's ancient Olympia, the birthplace of the Games, and will remain in the country until its departure to France from Athens on April 27.

The Olympic Torch relay will officially kick start the countdown to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games on Thursday in Fukushima-120 days to the start of the rescheduled tournament that was rescheduled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Olympic flame handover ceremony for the Tokyo Games will take place without spectators in an effort to contain the coronavirus outbreak, the Greek Olympic committee said Monday.

The Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC) decided to suspend the remainder of the Olympic Torch relay through the country to avoid attracting crowds because of coronavirus, it said on Friday.

But HOC said the opening leg of the relay in the southern Peloponnese town of Sparta attracted an "unexpectedly large crowd," forcing it to suspend the remaining stops.

Hollywood actor Gerard Butler, who played the role of King Leonidas of Sparta in the movie "300," will be in the Peloponnesian for events marking the 2,500-year anniversary of the Battle of Thermopylae, the city's honorary ambassador Roi Danali-Apostolopoulou confirmed.

Commuters were in for a headache in downtown Athens on Tuesday as the Olympic Torch relay was leading to the closure of key streets in the city center.