The Olympic Torch - traditionally lit by the sun in Olympia and carried around the Greek world calling people to the Games - is now borne around the modern globe. This year Africa and Latin America are included in its journey. On its way thousands of trees are being planted in every city which has hosted the Games - as well as in Beijing, Cairo, Cape Town, Rio de Janeiro, Las Vegas, New York, Lausanne and Nicosia. Hope runs high that some of the world's most troubled cities - including Jerusalem, Belfast, Ramallah and Baghdad - will join in this project, which stands for the Olympic values of peace and harmony, among people and in nature.


athoc / photo: n. christodoulou




Baron Pierre de Coubertin, a Frenchman, restarted the Games because he liked the way the Olympic ideals combined sport with moral and social education - similar to the educational ideals of France. The International Olympic Committee was founded in 1894, and the first modern Games were held in Greece in 1896.


athoc / photo: k. vergas
Six hundred olive trees lay in the way of construction at the Markopoulo Olympic Equestrian Centre. So they have been carefully uprooted and are being kept in a specially designed nursery, until the construction has finished. Then they will be planted again around the Olympic venues.


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Since July 2000, Athens has recycled 108 tonnes of paper, saving 1,836 trees and reducing the water needed to treat the paper pulp by 3,402,000 litres. It has cut energy consumption by 442,800 kW, saving 272.17 cubic metres of landfill space.
       
       
           
         
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