Special report:   2008 Olympic Games 

    BEIJING, March 23 (Xinhua) -- A delegation of Beijing Olympic organizers flew out of the city on Sunday to attend the Olympic flame-lighting ceremony in Greece.

    The delegation was headed by Liu Qi, president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG), who is also the Communist Party of China chief of Beijing.

    The Olympic torch for the Games will be lit using a mirror to focus the sun's rays in Olympia on Monday, according to BOCOG.

    Greek mythology says the Sun God Apollo lit the Olympic flame to bring brightness and warmth to humanity.

    The flame will be handed over to BOCOG at 3 p.m. on March 30 at the Panathenian Stadium in Athens, the city where the first modern Olympics Games was held in 1896.

    After a reception in Beijing on March 31, the Olympic flame will begin its global tour of 135 cities on April 1. The relay will cover 137,000 km in 130 days before the flame finally arrives at the National Stadium in Beijing on Aug 8, 2008 for the opening ceremony.

    The highlight of the torch relay, involving a total of 21,780 torchbearers, will be an attempt to take the Olympic flame to the summit of Mount Qomolangma, or Mount Everest as known in the west, in May.

    China has formed a top-level leading group for the preparations of the Beijing Olympic Games headed by Xi Jinping, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. The two deputy heads are Zhou Yongkang, also in the nine-member Political Bureau Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee, and Liu Qi.