Distance covered by the torch relay in the lead up to the Summer Olympics 1936-2016

Prior to the opening ceremony of each Summer Olympics, a torch relay is held to escort the flame from the site of the ancient Olympic Games near the town of Olympia, Greece to each respective host city. This has happened for every Olympics since the first relay leading up to the Berlin Games of 1936, and the relays traditionally see thousands of torchbearers, most often members of the public, collectively carry the flame over vast distances. The longest relay took place in 2004, prior to the games in Athens, which saw the relay travel around the globe, stopping off in 27 different countries and visiting all former hosts along the way. The second longest relay took place prior to the following Olympics in Beijing, which saw the torch travel approximately 137,000km, although the vast majority of this was within China. The shortest relay took place in 1976; in this relay, the torch was carried on foot from Olympia to Athens, where it was then transmitted via satellite to Ottawa, before being carried again on foot to Montreal. In order to make this possible, a sensor was used in Athens that detected ionized particles from the flame, which were then transmitted as impulses to Ottawa, where the signal activated the laser that lit the flame.