The Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games Flame Lighting Ceremony is held at the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City park in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, June 15, 2023. /Xinhua
The flame for the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games was lit on Thursday at the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City, marking the 100-day countdown to the opening ceremony for the event, which is set to run from September 23 to October 8.
The flame was lit out of a concave mirror using the sun's rays. Then a flame collector handed the torch to Yi Lianhong, secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, who ignited the cauldron.
Nestled in the suburban area of Hangzhou, Liangzhu boasts some of the earliest recorded evidence of Chinese civilization with a history that can be traced back to 3,300 years B.C.
Known for the prehistoric rice-cultivating civilizations of China and exquisite jade ware, as well as the country's earliest known large-scale water conservation network, Liangzhu was declared as a world heritage site by the UNESCO in 2019.
The torch lighting and torch relay launching ceremony will be held at Hangzhou's scenic landmark West Lake, another UNESCO World Heritage site, in mid-September, and the torch will be carried through 11 cities in Zhejiang Province.
A digital torch relay also kicked off online on Thursday. Over 21 million people have participated in a virtual torch relay as digital torchbearers through online platforms.
The opening ceremony will present the first digital ignition ceremony in the Games' history, and digital torchbearers worldwide can ignite the flame together online.
(With input from Xinhua)