Olympic symbols IOC at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics by the city of Innsbruck, Austria, and has since then been passed on to the next organizing city of the Winter Youth Olympics. The modern tradition of moving the Olympic flame via a relay system from Greece to the Olympic venue began with the Berlin Games in 1936. Months before the Games are held, the Olympic flame is lit on a torch, with the rays of the Sun concentrated by a parabolic reflector, at the site of the Ancient Olympics in Olympia, Greece. The torch is then taken out of Greece, most often
2002 Winter Olympics torch relay happening during the ceremony. The weekend prior to the lighting ceremony, the flame held in the clay urn had been lit using the parabolic mirror and the sun's rays in case of this situation. Following the ceremony, a two-day Greek torch relay carried the flame to the Panathenian stadium in Athens, Greece, where it burned in a cauldron for two weeks. On December 3, 2001, a Greek skier, Thanassis Tsailas, lit a 2002 Olympic torch from a flame in the cauldron, which in turn was used to light a ceremonial lantern. This lantern was then flown aboard the "Soaring Spirit"