An Olympic torch relay will run for 70 days ahead of the London 2012 Olympic Games. So what is this relay, and why all the fuss?
"It is an utterly thrilling thing to do," says Philip Barker.
The Olympic historian and author has a lump in the throat just at the memory of running, torch clasped in his hand, high in the Taygetos mountains above Sparta, Greece.
He was a part of the torch relay, the human-powered running feat that bore the flame on its journey from its source, Olympia, to the Atlanta Games in 1996.
From 18 May 2012 the Olympic torch relay will tour the UK in the run up to the London Games - taking 70 days, with about 8,000 torchbearers.
Organisers say 95% of the country's population should be within one hour of the route which will end with the lighting of the cauldron during the opening ceremony in the Olympic stadium, Stratford.
They hope that the emotion felt by Philip Barker will be shared by the nation and among crowds lining the route.
But how did the Olympic Games come to have this almost cultish following of a naked flame?
The perception of the torch relay is that it's a contemporary re-enactment of an ancient Greek tradition.
In reality, it is a phenomenon just of the modern Olympics, only beginning in the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin, and for the Winter Games at Oslo in 1952.
London 2012: What is the Olympic torch relay?
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