The Brazilian Olympic Committee president shows the lantern containing the Olympic flame brought from Greece as he deplanes in Brasilia on May 3.
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President Dilma Rousseff lit the torch at the presidential palace here while school children cheered, Air Force jets looped overhead and a group of some 100 demonstrators shouted their support for the embattled leader.
Olympic organizers say the torch’s journey will take it on roads, where around 90 percent of Brazil’s 200 million people will be able to see it.
The torch will pass through more than 300 towns and cities in the Latin American country from the Amazon to Brazil’s southern border, arriving at the Maracana Stadium in Rio on August 5. “We know about the political instability”.
Others included world surfing champion Gabriel Medina and 12-year-old Syrian refugee Hanan Khaled Daqqah.
The start of the torch relay comes just a week before the Brazilian senate is expected to suspend Rousseff for six months as it considers her impeachment.
A sign that the Summer Olympics are approaching: The Olympic torch is lit and beginning the trek around Brazil.
Rousseff said the country was working with worldwide security agencies “who have experience with terrorism”.
But political and economic turmoil overshadowed the ceremony ahead of South America’s first ever Olympics. Brazil will be capable in a hard period, a very hard, critical period in the history of our democracy of dealing with the problems…. Vice President Michel Temer would replace her during a trial of up to 180 days, and guide the country to elections in 2018 if she is removed from office.
She said she was headed home to Sao Paulo “with this lovely torch”.
The first torchbearer will be Fabiana Claudino, who led Brazil to Olympic gold medals in women’s volleyball in the 2008 and 2012 games, and the captain this time.
“Wherever the torch goes, there will be a camera on it”, Silva said.
Rousseff’s mentor and presidential predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, hopes to run for president again in 2018 – or even sooner in special snap elections that many in Brazil want to happen this year.
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Hanan is not the only Syrian refugee represented as the world watches the tradition of the Olympic Torch Relay.
