Cathy Freeman Selected as First Torchbearer for Athens Olympics

Australian runner Cathy Freeman, who lit the Olympic flame at the 2000 Sydney Games, will be the first international runner to carry the Olympic torch for the Athens Olympics next year. Organizers of the Athens Olympics stated in an interview with Reuters: 'The last person to carry the Sydney Olympic torch will be the first to carry the Athens Olympic torch.' Freeman won a gold medal in the women's 400 meters at the Sydney Olympics. She will initiate the largest Olympic torch relay to date. According to the plan, the torch will be carried by 10,000 runners and will visit 28 cities. The torch will be lit by sunlight in the ancient Olympia in May next year. After the traditional ceremony, Freeman will take the lit torch and after carrying it for several hundred meters, she will pass it to the next runner. The torch, designed in the shape of an olive leaf, will stop in all the cities that have hosted the Olympics and will, for the first time, pass through South America and Africa. Among the cities the Olympic torch will visit are Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, Cape Town, New Delhi, Lausanne, New York, Beijing, and Istanbul. The Olympic torch will be on a 35-day journey outside Greece, concluding on August 13, 2004, at the Olympic Stadium in Athens during the opening ceremony with the lighting of the Olympic cauldron.