Triathlon gold medalist Simon Whitfield and speed skating champion Catriona Le May Doan joined to light a torch for the Vancouver Games yesterday, kicking off the longest domestic torch relay in Olympic history.

Whitfield, who won gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and silver at the 2008 Beijing Games, resides in Victoria, British Columbia, where the relay started. Le May Doan is the only Canadian to successfully defend an individual Olympic title, having won gold at Nagano and Salt Lake City.

Over 106 days, the torch will stop in every Canadian province and territory leading to the lighting of the cauldron at BC Place. The games will be from Feb. 12-28 in Vancouver and Whistler.

The torch relay will cover nearly 28,000 miles, reaching the most extreme corners of the country, to Alert in Canada's arctic and L'Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland, on Canada's Atlantic coast. It will pass through more than 1,000 communities and be carried by 12,000 torchbearers on a journey by plane, boat, bike, dogsled, skateboard and other modes of transportation.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson carried the flame, burning in a miner's lantern, out of the aircraft that arrived yesterday from Greece, where the flame was lit by the rays of the sun on the site of the ancient games.

The flame was handed off to aboriginal native Canadians, who brought it across Victoria's inner harbor in their traditional canoes. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell made short speeches.

"All of this country is set to bask in the Olympic glow as the flame visits communities from coast to coast to coast," Harper said. "Not only is the run we are kicking off today going to be the longest torch relay within a single country in Olympic history, when it arrives in Alert, Nunavut, the northern-most tip of our Canadian territory, the Olympic flame will have officially traveled farther north than it has ever been before."

The Greek Olympic Committee acknowledged yesterday that it was wrong to allow a hurdler serving a doping ban to take part in the Vancouver flame relay.

Olympic Torch Relay Commission president Spyros Zannias says Fani Halkia was included in the relay after a proposal by the Greek Olympic medalists' association. Zannias said his commission "was wrong to accept the proposal," but offered no apology.

Halkia was expelled from the 2008 Beijing Games after testing positive for steroid use and banned for two years. She faces a trial for steroid use and has denied knowingly taking drugs.

The Italian Olympic Committee announced plans to vaccinate its athletes and officials against swine flu for the Vancouver Winter Olympics and Paralympics. The president of the committee, Giovanni Petrucci, made the decision after meeting with Italian deputy health minister Ferruccio Fazio. Italy is expected to send 350 athletes, coaches and staff to the Vancouver Games and Paralympics. Italy has reported at least six deaths related to swine flu in the past two months.

• The International Olympic Committee plans to begin negotiations on U.S. broadcast rights for the 2014 and '16 Games next year. IOC president Jacques Rogge told The Associated Press the talks can go ahead in '10 now that the U.S. appears to be coming out of the recession. Rogge says the bidding could begin shortly after the Winter Games in Vancouver. U.S. broadcast rights are the most lucrative single source of IOC marketing revenue. NBC paid $2.2 billion for rights to the Vancouver Games and '12 London Olympics.

• The U.S. Olympic Committee has hired the executive search firm Spencer Stuart to search for a new CEO, hoping to replace Stephanie Streeter by the end of the year. The organization also appointed a nine-person selection committee. Streeter announced this month she would not be a candidate but was committed to staying in the position through the Vancouver Olympics. The USOC board later decided it wanted a new CEO by Dec. 31.

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