Olympic flame returns to Switzerland for Youth Winter Games

From left, Danka Bartekova, President of IOC Coordination Commission for the Winter Youth Games Lausanne 2020, Ian Logan, Director General of the Organizing Committee of the Lausanne 2020 Winter Youth Games, Virginie Faivre, President of the Organizing Committee of the Lausanne 2020 Winter Youth Games and Roger Schnee, Director of Swiss Olympic, show the lantern containing the Olympic flame for Lausanne 2020 Winter Youth Games, at Geneva airport, in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2019. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)

GENEVA — The Olympic flame has arrived in Switzerland more than 70 years after the Alpine country last hosted a Winter Games.

Organizers of the 2020 Lausanne Winter Youth Olympics landed at Geneva airport on Wednesday with the lantern carrying the flame that was lit in Athens one day earlier.

The youth games, for athletes aged 15 to 18, are the first Olympics in Switzerland since St. Moritz hosted the 1948 Winter Games.

The Olympic torch will tour Switzerland for four months, starting in Lausanne on Saturday and ending in the IOC’s home city with the Jan. 9 opening ceremony. The torch tour also visits Les Tuffes in France, which will stage Nordic skiing events.