ATLANTA, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- Muhammad Ali sent the Olympic torch on its journey to the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City after a welcoming ceremony Tuesday in Centennial Olympic Park.
The torch arrived before dawn at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport from Athens, Greece, on a jumbo jet, returning to the last U.S. city to hold the Games for the start of a 46-state tour.
After the plane landed, Nikki Stone, a gold medalist in women's aerials at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, and Bill Spencer, a biathlete who competed in the 1964 and 1968 Olympics, passed the
torch to six-time gold medal speed skater Bonnie Blair and her mother Eleanor.
Ali, who lighted the flame at the Atlanta Games in 1996, was given the torch after the ceremony and passed it to figure skater Peggy Fleming, who carried the flame along with her former coach Robert Paul through Centennial Olympic Park. Ali
won a gold medal in boxing in 1960 and Fleming captured a gold medal in 1968.
The torch relay will travel more than 13,000 miles before its arrival in Salt Lake for the February 8 opening ceremony.
Among the torch-bearers will be New York Yankees Manager Joe Torre, baseball Hall Famer Willie Mays, former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young and Lyz Glick, the wife of Jeremy Glick, one of the passengers aboard the plane which crashed
Sept.11 in Pennsylvania after passengers struggled with hijackers.
The three-pound torch has a glass crown designed to simulate ice, with the flame flowing from within.
'
