The torch ceremony in the modern Olympics is in fact a distant ancestor of the ceremony at Olympia; however, the order is reversed. We know from Philostratus that the lighting of the 'fire' (the torch) was in fact the goal of the first athlos:
And the single-course foot race [stadion] was instituted in the following way. After the Eleans had completed all their customary sacrifices [to Zeus], the consecrated parts would lie on the altar, though not as yet set on fire. The runners would stand at a distance of one stadium [stadion] from the altar, in front of which there was a priest signalling the start with a torch. And the winner would set fire to the consecrated parts and then depart as an Olympic victor (Philostratus On Gymnastics 5)
In this clip from the Barcelona Olympics, the flame is lit by a modern day 'hero': a survivor of polio who will, through his superhuman prowess at the bow, light the flame of Zeus. In this manner, the Olympics looks back as through a haze to its origins in ritual, in which every subsequent athlos is under the auspices Zeus in his role as protector of sacred events.
