Beckham flies out to Greece to meet Olympic torch

Don't bother trying to keep David Beckham out of the news. Two and a half hours before Roy Hodgson revealed the composition of his party for the Euro 2012 finals – the first major tournament for which England have qualified since 1998 in which Beckham will take no part –came the announcement that Goldenballs will be arriving in Athens to observe Thursday's ceremony at which the Olympic flame will be handed over to the representatives of London 2012. Beckham, who celebrated his 37th birthday a fortnight ago, earned Sebastian Coe's gratitude for his prominent role in London's campaign to win this summer's Games, and his arrival this week will do nothing to quieten speculation that he will be one of the three over-age players in Stuart Pearce's Great Britain team for the Olympic football tournament, in which the majority of players have to be under 23. Britain's footballers won the gold medal at the first Games of the modern era, in 1896, but have not taken part in recent years because of the fear of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland football authorities that to enter a joint team would threaten their individual membership of Fifa, the sport's world governing body. There is a fierce debate about whether Beckham should be included in the squad, almost certainly alongside his old Manchester United colleague Ryan Giggs, who is 38. He has been adamant about his desire to take part, and his vast experience makes him a strong candidate for the captaincy. Earlier this week, Barack Obama met Beckham and his LA Galaxy team-mates, recent winners of the US championship play-off. On Thursday the former England captain will join Princess Anne, the president of the British Olympic Association, Hugh Robertson, the Olympics minister, and Lord Coe in the Panathenaic stadium, the home of the 1896 Games. The flame will arrive in the hands of Li Ning, the Chinese gymnast who soared to the rim of Beijing's Birds Nest stadium to light the cauldron four years ago, and Pyrros Dimas, the Olympic weighlifting champion, who was born in Albania of ethnic Greek parents, moved to Greece at 20 and won gold medals for his new country in Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney. It will be handed to the British representatives by the president of the Hellenic Olympic committee. Lit by the sun's rays during an elaborately choreographed pageant in Ancient Olympia a week ago, the flame arrived in Athens after a torch relay around Greece, including visits to Crete and the Turkish border. Despite beautiful weather, only small groups of spectators turned out to see the white-uniformed runners carrying it through a city preoccupied with thoughts of economic doom, while a gaggle of tourists stood amid cooling breezes halfway up the Acropolis, where the final torch-carriers turned up the steps to the Parthenon and to a rendezvous with the waiting dignitaries. A cauldron was lit, from which the torch will be reignited for its final ceremony on home soil. On Friday, Beckham and the assembled British dignitaries will accompany the flame on its flight to RNAS Culdrose, near Penzance, from where it will resume its peregrinations – initially in the hands of Ben Ainslie, a multiple Olympic sailing champion – on another long and winding relay before ending up in Stratford's Olympic stadium on 27 July for the opening ceremony.