Greece hands Olympic flame over to Britain

The flame for the London Olympics, which start on July 27 after a 70-day torch relay around Britain, was handed over on Thursday at a damp ceremony in the marble stadium that hosted the first modern Games in 1896.The flame, lit from the sun's rays at the home of the ancient Games in Olympia a week ago, was presented under grey and rainy skies to Britain's Princess Anne by the president of the Hellenic Olympic Committee Spyros Capralos.Transferred to a small lantern by golden torch from a cauldron, it will be guarded overnight in the British embassy in Athens.It will then be flown on 'Flight 2012', a British Airways Airbus 319 called 'Firefly', to a naval air base in south-west England on Friday before the relay starts at Land's End the following morning.London Games chairman and twice Olympic 1,500 metres champion Sebastian Coe paid tribute to Greece and even thanked the hosts for providing suitably "British weather" in a Panathenaic Stadium exposed to the elements.The relay will travel 12,800 km around Britain and Ireland, taking in 1,018 villages and the 1,085-metre summit of Snowdon, before culminating with the lighting of the Olympic cauldron in the new stadium in east London.(Reuters)