The Olympic flame of the modern-day Olympic Games is lit by reflection of sunlight in a parabolic mirror at the restored Olympia stadium and then transported by a torch to the place where the games are held. When the modern Olympics came to Athens in 2004, the men's and women's shot put competition was held at the restored stadium.
The town has a train stations and is the easternmost terminus of the line of Olympia-Pirgos (Ilia). The train station with the freight yard to its west is located about 300 m east of the town centre. It is linked by GR-74 and the new road was opened in the 1980s; the next stretch N and N E of Olympia opened in 2005. The distance from Pirgos is 20 km, about 50 kLm SW of Lampeia, W of Tripoli and Arcadia and 4 km north of Krestena and N of Kyparessia and Messenia. The highway passes north of the ancient ruins. A reservoir is located 2 km southwest, damming up the Alfios River. A road from Olympia and Krestena was closed in the late-1990s. The area is hilly and mountainous; most of the area within Olympia is forested.
Panagiotis Kondilis, one of the most prominent modern Greek thinkers and philosophers, was born and raised in Olympia. When Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the International Olympic Committee, died in 1937, a monument to him was erected at ancient Olympia. Emulating Evangelis Zappas, whose head is buried under a statue in front of the Zappeion, his heart was buried at the monument

Olympia (Olimpia, Olimbia), a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi. Both games were held every olympiad (i.e. every four years), the Olympic Games dating back possibly further than 776 B C. In 394 emperor Theodosius I, or possibly his grandson Theodosius II in 435, abolished them because they were reminiscent of paganism.
Excavation of the Olympia temple district and its surroundings began with a French expedition in 1829. German archaeologists continued the work in the latter part of the 19th century. The latter group uncovered, intact, the Hermes of Praxiteles statue, among other artifacts. In the middle of the 20 th Century, the stadium where the running contests took place was excavated.
Olympia is also known for the gigantic ivory and gold statue of Zeus that used to stand there, sculpted by Feidias, which was named one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Antipater of Sidon. Very close to the temple of Zeus which housed this statue, the studio of Pheidias was excavated in the 1950s.
Evidence found there such as sculptor´s tools, corroborates this opinion. The Olympic flame of the modern-day Olympic Games is lit by reflection of sunlight in a parabolic mirror at the restored Olympia stadium and then transported by a torch to the place where the games are held.

The Olympic flame in a ceremony at the ancient birth place of the Olympic Games. A woman playing the high priestess of the sanctuary that once honored the Greek gods of Zeus and Hera, lit the flame from a clay urn after a heavy cloud cover at noon made it impossible to ignite the flame with the rays of the sun.

The flame in the urn had been ignited with the rays of the sun
A series of bronze tripods have been found at Olympia, some of which may date to the 9th century BC, and it has been suggested that these tripods may in fact be prizes for some of the early events at Olympia Additional events, both equestrian and for humans, were added throughout the course of the history of the Olympic Games The town has a school and a square (plateia).

Tourism is popular throughout the late-20th century. The city has a train station and is the easternmost terminus of the line of Olympia-Pyrgos (Ilia). The train station which the freight yard is west of it is about 300 m east of the town centre.

It is linked by GR-74 and the new road was opened in the 1980s, the next stretch N and N E of Olympia will open in around 2005. Distance from Pyrgos is 20 km E (old: 21 km), about 50 km SW of Lampeia, W of Tripoli and ArKadia and 4 km north of Krestena and N of Kyparissia and Messenia. The highway passed north of the ancient ruins.
A reservoir is located 2 km southwest damming up the Alfeios river and has a road from Olympia and Krestena which in the late-1990s has been closed.