©IOC

This Relay, which lasted 55 days, linked Olympia to Mexico City via a very special itinerary: following the route of Christopher Columbus to the New World. This is why the flame stopped over in Genoa, Italy (the explorer’s hometown); in Palos, Spain (the coastal city from where he set off for the New World); and on the island of San Salvador, in the Bahamas (where Columbus landed in 1492), before arriving in Mexico.

This route was chosen to underline the links between the Mediterranean and Latin American civilisations, as well as between ancient civilisations, the Greco-Latin and pre-Hispanic ones.