ATHENS - The flame for the 2010 Olympic Games is on its way home.

After an eight-day relay through coastal villages and mountain towns, Greek officials turned the flame over to Vancouver Olympic organizers in a ceremony Thursday night that included a trace of scandal over the Greek's decision to allow a disgraced hurdler to carry the torch.

"My friends, Canadians, we're giving you the Olympic light to take it to your beautiful country,'' Spyros Capralos, president of the Hellenic Olympic Committee, said through a translator.

"We place it in your hands as part of our history, as part of our culture, as part of our lives.

"We're sure that the Hellenic Olympic Committee, the athletes and Greeks are happy to tell you: Good luck in 2010 in Vancouver.''

The flame was handed to John Furlong, chief executive officer of the Vancouver Games' organizing committee, who noted the handover marks the beginning of the 106-day relay through Canada.

"As the flame travels across Canada's vast landscape, it will shed a light on the people, places and the achievements of our country,'' he said.

The ceremony included a procession of women in white flowing robes, carrying olive branches and solemnly gliding into Panathinaiko Stadium to a simple drumbeat and flute composition. They were meant to evoke the rituals of ancient Greece.

But the star of the evening was the flame itself, carried for the last time in Greece by Greek-Canadian figure skater Nikki Georgiadis.

She lit a cauldron in the centre of the stadium using a 2010 torch, itself lit from the flame ignited from the rays of the sun in a similarly elaborate ceremony last week in Olympia.

The moment marked the end of the eight-day relay through Greece, which was marred by controversy after the torch was carried in Athens by hurdler Fani Halkia.

Halkia won a gold medal in the 400-meter hurdles at the 2004 Athens Olympics but she was expelled from the 2008 Beijing Games after testing positive for the steroid methyltrienolone. She received a two-year suspension from her sport.

The Intenational Olympic Committee issued a statement Thursday criticizing Greek officials for allowing her to carry the torch, saying it was "inappropriate and a regrettable mistake.''

Canada's sport minister, Gary Lunn, also expressed his displeasure, saying it wouldn't happen in Canada. Lunn was at the Athens stadium for the handover.

Halkia denies any wrongdoing, and said that tampered diet supplements may have triggered the positive doping test.

IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said the torch relay guidelines clearly state that torchbearer selection should respect the Olympic Charter.

"People who have had their Olympic Games accreditation removed and/or who have been found guilty of doping offences should not be permitted to run as a torchbearer,'' Moreau said in an email.

Moreau said the IOC plans to discuss the matter with the Hellenic Olympic Committee, which was responsible for choosing torchbearers for the Greek relay.

The HOC issued a statement saying the choice of Halkia was made by the Olympic Medalists Association, and it was one the HOC doesn't support.

"It is the HOC's steady position, that all athletes under penalty should not have the right to participate in any kind of activity and event.''

The five Olympic rings at the Athens stadium, built for the first modern day Games in 1896, loom over the shining marble bleachers complete with built-in thrones for the dignitaries that used to watch Olympic events.

On Thursday night, those seats were filled with the president of the Greek Republic and Canadian Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean.

It was a bittersweet night for Vancouver officials.

Only hours after the flame was lit in ancient Olympia on Oct. 22, the chairman of the board of directors for the Games, Jack Poole, passed away.

Among the few major announcements he'd been involved in with these Games was the launch of the torch relay route last fall and while it was known he was ill, all had hoped he'd live to see the start of the epic event.

Furlong made specific reference to "Jack'' in his opening greeting in Athens on Thursday.

After the evening ceremony, the flame was passed from the hands of the Greeks to those of the Canadians.

The fire was dipped into a miner's lantern and carried out of the stadium, to be secured into a special car seat that will be strapped onto the Canadian military plane bringing it home.

The flight arrives in Victoria on Friday morning and, after a brief ceremony at the airport, the lantern will be transferred to a canoe to officially begin the torch relay in Canada.

The relay runs for 106 days and will cover 45,000 kilometres by plane, boat, bike, dogsled, skateboard and many other modes of transportation.

The final leg of the journey is in Vancouver, where the flame will be run into BC Place Stadium to light a cauldron there and signal the start of the Vancouver Games on Feb. 12.