Torch and sandals: What to know about the flame-lighting ceremony in Greece for the Paris Olympics

Here's a look at the workings and meaning of the elaborate flame-lighting ceremony held among the ruins of Ancient Olympia ahead of each modern Olympiad.

A priestess prays to a dead sun god in front of a fallen Greek temple. If the sky is clear, a flame spurts that will burn in Paris throughout the world's top sporting event. Speeches ensue.

On Tuesday, the flame for this summer's Paris Olympics will be lit at the birthplace of the ancient Olympic Games in southern Greece in a meticulously choreographed ceremony.

It will then be carried through Greece for more than 5,000 kilometres (3,100 miles) before being handed over to French organizers at the Athens venue used for the first modern Olympics in 1896.

Here's a look at the workings and meaning of the elaborate ceremony held among the ruins of Ancient Olympia ahead of each modern Olympiad.

Couldn't the Academy Awards just be announced in a conference call?

The pageantry at Olympia has been an essential part of every Olympics for nearly 90 years since the Games in Berlin. It's meant to provide an ineluctable link between the modern event and the ancient Greek original on which it was initially modelled.

Once it's been carried by any means imaginable to the host city - it's been beamed down by satellite, lugged up Mount Everest and towed underwater - the flame kindles a cauldron that burns in the host Olympic stadium until the end of the games. Then it's used for the Paralympics.