The torch of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games was lit this Tuesday in ancient Olympia, in a traditional ceremony that marks the end of seven years of preparations for an event that will start on July 26 in the capital of France. Greek actress Mary Mina, playing the role of the priestess, lit the flame using a spare one instead of the parabolic mirror normally used, because the sky was cloudy. The relays, which began today, will end in Paris with the lighting of the flame at the inauguration. Paris will host the Games for the third time in history, after 1900 and 1924. “In these difficult times we live in, with wars and conflicts emerging, people are fed up with hatred, aggression and negative news that they face day in and day out,” said Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee during his speech. “We hope for something that unites us all together, something that gives us hope. The Olympic flame that we light today is the symbol of this hope,” he added.
The IOC has paved the way for Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete in the Games despite the war in Ukraine, but they will have to do so as neutral athletes without a national flag or anthem, a decision that angered Moscow. French President Emmanuel Macron also said last week that Russia would be asked about a ceasefire in Ukraine during the Games. But the Kremlin said Ukraine could use it as an opportunity to regroup and rearm. Conflicts suspended in a kind of Olympic truce during the Games were a common practice in Ancient Greece.
The first relay of the Olympic flame was the Greek canoeist Stefanos Ntouskos. After a brief tour, it was handed over to the French three-time Olympic swimming medalist Laure Manaudou, as a representative of the host city. The flame will be officially handed over to the organizers of the Paris Games at the Panathenaic stadium in Athens, the place where the first Olympics of the modern era were held in 1896. This ceremony will take place on April 26, after a route of 11 days through Greece. Then it will leave by boat, on the Belem, a three-masted ship, which will carry the flame to Marseille, where it is expected to dock on May 8, in a ceremony in which 150,000 people are expected. There, the last reliever in town will climb to the top of Velodrome Stadium on May 9. Marseille, which was founded by the Greeks in 600 BC, will host the sailing competitions at the Games.
The relays across France will last 68 days and will end with the lighting of the Olympic flame on July 26.
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