麻豆社

29 August 2012 Last updated at 01:09

In pictures: Paralympic torch relay

The Paralympic flame is heading for London as part of a 24-hour relay after a cauldron-lighting ceremony for 3,000 invited guests, including Paralympians and representatives from disability groups.

Four national flames, kindled last week, were united in a cauldron at the ceremony in Stoke Mandeville - the spiritual home of the Paralympics.

The national flames were kindled at the summits of the highest peaks in Scotland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales

Speaking ahead of the flame-lighting ceremony, Eva Loeffler - the daughter of the founder of the Paralympic Games, Dr Ludwig Guttman - paid tribute to the role the Stoke Mandeville Games played in defining the modern Paralympic movement.

Some 150 local residents took part in a lantern procession and formed a guard of honour for eight torchbearers who carried flames representing the four home nations. Children had gathered at Stoke Mandeville last week to make the brightly-coloured lanterns, using canes and tissue paper.

Sally Haynes - seen waving here - was one of the Paralympians who carried the torch around the Stoke Mandeville athletics track. Haynes took part in the first Paralympic Games in Rome in 1960 and went on to compete at a further three Games, winning medals in the Epee discipline of wheelchair fencing.

The flame is being carried 92 miles from Buckinghamshire to London's Olympic Stadium by 580 torchbearers.

麻豆社

UK

In pictures: Paralympic torch relay

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