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The Olympic flame is now in Canadian hands.

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, including Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean, was entrusted with the flame at a ceremony at Panathinaiko Stadium in Athens on Thursday.

The final torchbearer in the Greek portion of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic torch relay was Nikki Georgiadis, a Greek-Canadian figure skater and an Olympic hopeful in ice dance.

Relay sparks controversy

The International Olympic Committee is upset that hurdler Fani Halkia, a Greek athlete who tested positive for doping at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, carried the torch in Athens.

Halkia, a gold medallist in the 400-metre hurdles at the 2004 Athens Olympics, was expelled from the 2008 Beijing Games after testing positive for the steroid methyltrienolone and was suspended for two years from the sport. She denies any wrongdoing.

The IOC issued a statement Thursday saying it was "inappropriate and a regrettable mistake" to let Halkia carry the flame.

"People who have had their Olympic Games accreditation removed and/or who have been found guilty of doping offences should not be permitted to run as a torchbearer," IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said in an email.

Gary Lunn, Canada's sport minister, who was at the ceremony in Athens, also voiced his concern over the choice, saying the same would not happen during Canada's torch relay.

Georgiadis brought the Olympic flame into the stadium, lit a cauldron in the centre of the stadium using a 2010 torch — itself lit from the rays of the sun in a ceremony last week in Olympia — before the Hellenic Olympic Committee handed it over to Canadian officials.

"My friends, Canadians, we're giving you the Olympic light to take it to your beautiful country," Spyros Capralos, president of the Hellenic Olympic Committee, said through a translator. "We place it in your hands as part of our history, as part of our culture, as part of our lives.

"We're sure that the Hellenic Olympic Committee, the athletes and Greeks are happy to tell you: 'Good luck in 2010 in Vancouver.'"

John Furlong, chief executive officer of the Vancouver Games organizing committee, received the flame and reflected upon the upcoming 106-day relay through Canada during which 12,000 individuals will carry the torch through more than 1,000 communities.

"As the flame travels across Canada's vast landscape, it will shed a light on the people, places and the achievements of our country," he said.

The flame was then contained in a miner's lantern and carried out of the stadium, where it was to be secured to a special seat aboard a Department of Defence chartered aircraft.

That plane will land in Victoria on Friday to begin the start of the torch relay across Canada — the longest of its kind in Olympic history — covering more than 45,000 kilometres of the country before ending in Vancouver for the opening ceremonies of the Games on Feb. 12.

With files from The Canadian Press