He kind of passed the Olympic torch to me.

The torch is being passed.

The torch has already been passed.

I think the torch was passed.

We will have a torch run at 2 p.m. and will light an Olympic cauldron to play up the Olympic theme.

It's more like a relay race and the torch is now passed to Atlantis and the STS-121 crew. Now we have some data to work with, and for the first time in the shuttle era, we've got a very solid place to start.