Olympic torch is lit in spectacular ceremony in ancient Olympia to mark 100-day countdown for the Paris 2024 Games… with flame to arrive in France next month ahead of July 26 opening ceremony
- The Olympic torch was lit in ancient Olympia on Tuesday
- The torch will be brought to Marseille next month before heading to Paris
- The 2024 Olympic Games open in Paris on July 26
The torch for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games was lit at Ancient Olympia on Tuesday in a traditional ceremony, marking the final stretch of the seven-year preparations for the start of the Games on July 26.
Greek actress Mary Mina, who played the role of a high priestess, lit the torch with a backup flame instead of a parabolic mirror due to cloudy skies before the start of a relay in Greece and France.
The highlight will be the lighting of the Olympic flame in the French capital during the opening ceremony.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said the Olympic flame will pass by the site of the 2015 Islamist attack on the Bataclan concert hall and the Shoah Memorial as it makes its way through Paris in July.
โThis torch is a message of peace, a message of friendship between peoples, which is all the more powerful at a time when the world is in such a bad state,โ Hidalgo told France 2 TV from Olympia, Greece.
The torch for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games was lit in ancient Olympia on Tuesday
The flame will be brought to Marseille on May 8 before making its way to Paris
IOC President Thomas Bach spoke during the torch lighting ceremony in Greece
The flame will be brought to Marseille on May 8 and then gradually make its way to Paris ahead of the opening ceremony on July 26.
In Paris, torchbearers will also pass historic monuments such as Place de la Concorde square and the National Assembly, and through working-class neighborhoods including Belleville or Porte de la Chapelle in the east and north, Hidalgo said.
Paris City Hall, which will host the flame on July 14 when France celebrates Bastille Day, will remain open all night so that “visitors and Parisians can see this symbol of fraternal transmission across the planet,” she added to.
The Shoah Memorial in Paris is dedicated to Jewish history during World War II.
In November 2015, a group of Islamist gunmen targeted the Bataclan music hall, as well as bars, restaurants and the Stade de France sports stadium, killing a total of 130 people.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday he would seek a truce at the Olympics, adding that he had the conflict in the Middle East in mind, as well as the war in Ukraine and Sudan.