WATCH: eight landmark moments from the history of the Olympic Games

The Olympic Games have delivered many defining moments through the years. Episodes that have gone down in world history and which transcended the sporting element of the occasion.

Here is a selection of Olympic moments that will forever be remembered.

Ali lights the torch, Atlanta 1996

Atlanta 1996 marked the centenary of the modern Olympics and organisers hatched a top-secret plan for Muhammad Ali to light the torch at the opening ceremony.

The American had won a light-heavyweight gold medal in 1960 as Cassius Clay, before changing his name and becoming “The Greatest”, a boxer whose exploits in the ring transcended his sport to make him arguably the world’s most beloved athlete.

But 36 years after his triumph at the Rome Games, Ali’s once mighty body was wracked by Parkinson’s disease and he had not been fit enough to take part in rehearsals for the ceremony.

On the big night, the Georgia Dome crowd gasped in surprise as Ali emerged from behind a curtain in a white tracksuit, his arms and head shaking erratically.

As a global audience of three billion held its breath, Ali momentarily conquered his trembling to defiantly hold aloft the Olympic flame before slowly lowering it to light the cauldron’s fuse.