Watch live: Olympic Flame lighting ceremony takes place in Olympia ahead of Paris 2024

Watch live as the Olympic Flame lighting ceremony takes place in Olympia ahead of Paris 2024 on Tuesday (16 April).

The ceremony, held on the ancient site of Olympia, is an event open to the public and televised around the world.

Up to 30 priestesses or ‘Caryatids Korres’ will perform a series of rituals, calling on the sun god Apollo to ignite the Olympic flame using the rays of the sun and a parabolic mirror.

The fire will stay lit for the entirety of the Olympic Games period. It symbolises purity and represents the values of the Olympics between nations.

Speeches will made by officials from the various Olympic committees.

Around 500 torchbearers will then carry the Olympic flame on a 2,000 kilometre odyssey around Greece, before reaching the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, the site of the first modern Olympics in 1896, on 26 April.

Greek Olympic rowing champion Stefanos Ntouskos will be the first torchbearer in the relay that will travel from Olympia to Paris for next year’s Games.

It will arrive in France on 8 May, just over two-and-a-half months before the start of the Games in Paris on 26 July when it will be used to light the Olympic flame.