Let The Relay Begin!

The Olympic Flame
Originally uploaded by Krista 1366.

The countdown begins as the snow falls on the mountains in Piemonte! The winter Olympics are only 2 months away!

Olympic Flame Arrives in Italy
By ANDREW DAMPF, AP Sports Writer

ROME - The Olympic flame arrived in Italy on Wednesday, a little more than two months before the Turin Winter Games begin.
The flame arrived from Athens at Rome's Ciampino military airport aboard an Italian plane at 4:41 a.m. EDT. Turin organizing committee chief Valentino Castellani carried the flame ? kept in a small lantern for safe air travel ? off the plane and onto Italian soil.
Castellani held the lantern aloft as a military band played the Olympic anthem.
"It's very emotional," Castellani told reporters at the airport. "We are ready to start the games."
Plane landings at Ciampino's passenger terminal were suspended for about 45 minutes shortly before the arrival of the flame because of a bomb scare, the airport's border police said. The security alert ended following police checks at the airport.
The flame will be taken later Wednesday to the presidential Quirinal Palace. On Thursday, Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi will pass the flame to the first torchbearer in Italy ? Stefano Baldini, the marathon winner at last year's Summer Games in Athens ? as the flame starts a relay that will end at the opening ceremony in Turin on Feb. 10.
The relay will head straight for the nearby Trevi Fountain and pass by other Rome landmarks such as the Spanish Steps and the Pantheon before arriving at the Vatican for a blessing by Pope Benedict XVI.
The first day of the relay will end with the lighting of a cauldron at the Michelangelo-designed Campidoglio on Rome's Capitoline Hill, at the exact spot where the relay began for the 1960 Rome Games.
The torch will spend one more day in Rome on Friday, when soccer players Francesco Totti of AS Roma and Paolo Di Canio of city rival Lazio light each other's torch.
The relay will then move on through every province in Italy ? with forays into France, Austria, Switzerland and Slovenia. It will pass by the Leaning Tower of Pisa and up Venice's Grand Canal.
On Jan. 26, the torch will return to Cortina d'Ampezzo for the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Winter Games held there.
In all, the relay will cover 7,022 miles and involve 10,000 torchbearers, gondolas, a Ferrari sports car, and a cavalry regiment.
Turin-based design company Pininfarina SpA, renowned engineer of Fiats and Ferraris, designed the torch to look like the curved top of a ski.
Moroccan runner Hicham El Guerrouj, Italy soccer coach Marcello Lippi, New York Yankees manager Joe Torre, and all Italian gold medalists from the Athens and 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics will take part in the relay.
The final torchbearer, whose name has not yet been revealed, will light the flame at the opening ceremony in Turin on Feb. 10. Ski great Alberto Tomba is considered the favorite for the honor.

A little addtion to this...

Rome Ciampino airport was closed due to a bomb threat only hours before the Olympic Flame arrived. I hope this is not a sign of things to come. All over the news for the last few days have been warnings over security for the upcoming games...Here is the link to the story Rome's Ciampino airport reopens after bomb alert. I also added a link in my sidebar to the official 2006 Olympics site!


Krista