Greece's top Olympic organiser Gianna Angelopoulos will run a leg of the torch relay on Saturday, according to media reports.

Angelopoulos will be a torch bearer on her native island of Crete as the Olympic flame returns to Greece for the final leg of its global journey, the reports said.

Athens organising officials refused to confirm or deny the reports

The international leg of the relay that finished on Friday on Cyprus lasted 34 days, taking in 33 cities, and for the first time visited the five continents represented by the Olympic rings.

Hundreds turned out in the balmy early evening in the Cretan capital of Heraklion to welcome the torch which will now begin a week of island hopping ahead of a tour of the mainland.

Highlights of the second phase of the torch relay around Greece include an August 8 run across the new 750 million euro ($928.2 million) Rio-Antirio bridge.

The 2.8-km suspension bridge will link the Peloponnese peninsula with Western Greece.

On August 13 the torch will finally arrive at the main Olympic Stadium in Athens to light the cauldron, signifying the start of the Games.

The flame's $45 million global journey had all the hallmarks of a presidential tour with security, surveillance, motorcades, cheering crowds and a specially chartered jumbo jet, dubbed Zeus.

The flame, known as the "Mother Flame" by torch relay runners, was lit from the sun's rays in ancient Olympia in the western Peloponnese on March 25.