(CNN) -- The Olympic torch begins a 130-day, 85,000-mile journey Monday that will take it from the site of ancient Olympia in Greece to Beijing, China, where the 2008 summer games will begin in August.
Rehearsals for the lighting ceremony for the Olympic torch are held Sunday in Olympia, Greece.
Olympic officials insist the torch relay will not detour around Tibet and nearby regions despite violent anti-Chinese protests and calls by Tibetan activists for a boycott of the Beijing games.
About 1,000 police were expected to be on hand to keep demonstrators away from the ceremony, according to reports from The Associated Press. A pro-Tibet independence group had vowed to protest at the official lighting of the Olympic torch, AP reported.
Meanwhile, IOC president Jacques Rogge said he was engaged in "silent diplomacy" with China on Tibet and other human rights issues in advance of the Beijing Olympics, AP reported.
While much of the trip will be aboard a chartered jet, tens of thousands of torchbearers -- 19,400 in China alone -- will carry the flame on foot through 23 cities on five continents and then throughout China.
Organizers plan to light the flame Monday by focusing the sun's rays on a concave steel mirror at the ruins of the Temple of Hera in Olympia. If the threat of rain makes that impractical, they have a back-up plan that would use a flame from a rehearsal last week.
Greek actress Maria Nafpliotou, portraying the High Priestess, will light the first torch. It will be carried the first mile by Alexandros Nikolaidis, a Greek athlete who won a silver medal in taekwondo at the 2004 Olympics.
China's Olympic swimming gold medalist, Luo Xuejuan, will take the flame from Nikolaidis. Another 603 bearers will run the torch through Greece, culminating in Athens on March 30, where the torch will be handed over to China for a flight to Beijing.
After a ceremonial arrival in Beijing, the flame will move around the world through April. At the beginning of May, it begins a three-month trek through at least 111 Chinese cities in more than 30 provinces and regions.
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A second flame will attempt a side trip sometime in May -- depending on weather conditions -- to the top of Mt. Everest, the world's highest peak, along the Tibet-Nepal border.
The most controversial leg of the torch relay is planned for June, when it is scheduled to be carried through Tibet and three neighboring provinces where violent unrest broke out this month.
Olympic officials insisted last week that the relay in these areas will proceed as planned.
"All the preparations for the torch relay in Tibet, Xinjiang, Qinghai and Gansu are proceeding very well," Beijing Olympics organizer Jiang Xiaoyu said.
The flame is set to arrive in Beijing on August 6, where it will be paraded around the city until entering the stadium for the Olympics opening ceremony on August 8.
In addition to visiting cities in Greece and China, runners plan to carry the torch to countries including Almaty, Kazakhstan, St. Petersburg, Russia and San Francisco, California.
Just before the mainland China stretch, the flame will also pass through China's two special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macao.Original here
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