1968 Summer Olympics torch relay the National Olympic Committee (NOC) for the host nation provided all the torch-bearers, but for this event each country through which the torch passed was allowed to select their own representatives. The route was designed to replicate that taken by Christopher Columbus in his first visit to the New World. Three locations were seen as key to the route: The flame was lit in Olympia and then taken to Athens where a ceremony greeted it on 24 August 1968. From there runners carried the torch to the port of Piraeus and it was taken aboard the Greek destroyer HNS "Navarino".
1936 Summer Olympics torch relay Much of the route was split into kilometre-long sections and it was anticipated that each runner would traverse that distance in five minutes, though some leeway was given to allow for difficult terrain and sparsely populated areas. The names of most of the torch bearers, all of whom were male, were not recorded. For the pass of the Olympic flame at Delphi, a milestone with the Olympic symbol in the faces was made for a torchbearers' ceremony in the stadium at Delphi, site of the famous oracle, where the Pythian Games were also held for orders of Carl Diem where