ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION)<br/> <br />Story: The flame for the London Olympics, which start on July 27 after a 70-day torch relay around Britain, was handed over on Thursday at a damp ceremony in the marble stadium that hosted the first modern Games in 1896.<br/> <br />The flame, lit from the sun's rays at the home of the ancient Games in Olympia a week ago, was presented under gray and rainy skies to Britain's Princess Anne by the president of the Hellenic Olympic Committee Spyros Capralos.<br/> <br />Transferred to a small lantern by golden torch from a cauldron, it will be guarded overnight in the British embassy in Athens.<br/> <br />It will then be flown on 'Flight 2012', a British Airways Airbus 319 called 'Firefly', to a naval air base in south-west England on Friday before the relay starts at Land's End the following morning.<br/> <br />England soccer captain David Beckham, will travel with the flame on Friday and is strongly tipped to be part of the first British soccer team<br/> <br />since 1960 at the Games.<br/> <br />The relay will travel 12,800 km around Britain and Ireland, taking in 1,018 villages and the 1,085-meter summit of Snowdon,<br/> <br />before culminating with the lighting of the Olympic cauldron in the new stadium in east London.<br/> <br />Greek president Karolos Papoulias, whose debt-stricken country risks bankruptcy and an exit from the European single currency, also attended the ceremony after naming a caretaker Prime Minister in an emergency government on Wednesday to lead Greece to new elections next month.<br/> <br />Greek rowing world champion Christina Giazitzidou carried the flame into the stadium, built in 330BC and reconstructed for 1896, with a branch from what is claimed to be the oldest olive tree in the world in her other hand.<br/> <br />As she entered, as if by celestial command, the rain eased and the sun tried to break through the cloud.<br/> <br />The final two torchbearers were Greek weightlifter Pyrros Dimas and Chinese gymnast Li Ning, who lit the cauldron at the<br/> <br />2008 Beijing Games, running together with the torch.<br/> <br />Cries of 'Hellas, Hellas' went up from the crowd as the cauldron in the centre of the stadium was lit and five white<br/> <br />doves were released by school children.
