Gift from Greece to be dedicated.

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Gift from Greece to be dedicated
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The George V. Brown statue will share top billing on Hopkinton Common on Saturday with the eternal flame, a permanent gift from Marathon, Greece, that will be dedicated by town officials and Marathon Mayor Spyros Zargaris.

more stories like thisThe lighting ceremony is scheduled for 2:30 p.m.

Zargaris was scheduled to arrive in Boston yesterday, accompanied by seven Greek runners participating in Monday's 112th Boston Marathon and Dimitri Kyriakides, son of Stylianos Kyriakides, who won the 1946 Boston Marathon in a showdown with the legendary Johnny Kelley.

"This is a gift from Marathon, Greece, to the major marathons of the world, " said Tim Kilduff, president of the Hopkinton Athletic Association.

Two years ago, New Balance, the Canton-based athletic shoe manufacturer, commissioned a $250,000 statue that now stands in Hopkinton at the Marathon's 1-mile mark. The work features Kyriakides, a hero in his country, standing next to Spiridon Louis, the winner of the first modern Olympic marathon in Athens in 1896. According to legend, a Greek soldier, Pheidippides, made his run from Marathon to Athens in 490 BC to report victory against the invading Persians, and then died from exhaustion.

This weekend's ceremony will mark the first time that the seacoast town of Marathon has shared its eternal flame with a North American community. The original flame burns at the site of a tomb in Marathon honoring fallen Greek soldiers.

Gold-, silver-, and bronze-plated wreaths made from branches of the olive trees that surround the tomb are being presented to officials in the eight cities and towns on the Boston Marathon route.

Hopkinton's Marathon Week festivities include a visit by Kyriakides and the Greek marathoners to Hopkinton Middle School tomorrow morning, and then afternoon tea with Girl Scouts at Weston Nurseries. They will escort the torch Saturday from the 1-mile mark and starting line to Hopkinton Common. The flame will be at the starting line on Monday.

MARVIN PAVE
Boston.com
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