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".
Torch regenerative power of flame. The torch is also a symbol used by political parties, for instance by both Labour (from 1918 to 1980) and the Conservatives (from 1983 to 2006) in the UK, and the Malta Labour Party. In the seals of schools in the Philippines, the torch symbolizes the vision of education to provide enlightenment to all the students. A torch carried in relay by runners is used to light the Olympic flame which burns without interruption until the end of the Games. These torches and the relay tradition were introduced in the 1936 Summer Olympics by Carl Diem,