ABSTRACT
Athanassios (Nassos) Kritsinelis is known and respected across the world as the dean of Olympic Flame Relay (OFR) practice. As OFR technical director and manager, first for the Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC) and then for the 2004 Athens Olympic Organizing Committee (ATHOC), he has for over 30 years been the most notable on-the-ground guardian and innovator of Greek OFR traditions, as well as the chief Greek interlocutor with the succession of Olympic Games Organizing Committees receiving the flame. Kritsinelis was the main ATHOC planner for the Athens 2004 relay. Athanassios KritsinelisI went to work for the HOC in 1972, and was subsequently approached by Dimitrios Xirouchakis, then the chairman of the HOC Flame Relay subcommittee. The HOC will still be expected to make the Greek ceremonies, but it will do so only as a kind of subcontractor to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Already, the IOC has told the HOC the timing Lausanne prefers for the Beijing relay in Greece.
