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
1936 Summer Olympics torch relay flame was lit on site at the stadium. Carl Diem devised the idea of the torch relay for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin that was organized by the Nazi Party under the guidance of Joseph Goebbels. The process was ratified by the International Olympic Committee and has been repeated at all the Games that have followed. Diem and the organizing team realized that there would need to be very detailed plans in order to successfully complete the relay to a standard that would satisfy both themselves and the ruling Third Reich. At the time they were unsure about exactly