The tradition of relaying the Olympic torch was started by the Nazis for the Berlin Games in 1936.
(The torch was carried through Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia and finally Germany. A reconnaissance mission? On a lighter note, in Sydney 1956 Barry Larkin, a university student, fooled crowds when he carried a wooden chair leg crowned with a blazing metal pudding container which held the remains of his burning underpants.)