OLYMPIA, Greece: Almost 100 days exactly before the 2024 Games start in Paris, the sacred flame for the Paris 2024 Olympics is to be lit today (April 16) in ancient Olympia, birthplace of the ancient Games, followed by an epic torch relay stretching from the Acropolis to the South Pacific.
With International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach and Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou heading the list, around 600 dignitaries will watch as the Olympic torch will be handed to Greece’s 2020 Olympics rowing champion Stefanos Ntouskos, the first torchbearer.
The event will be held at the small Peloponnese town in southwestern Greece where the Olympics were born in 776 BCE, and where the ceremony is held every two years for the summer and winter Olympics.
The ceremony will be conducted at the ruins of the 2,600-year-old Temple of Hera where Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and French sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera will also be present.
Joyce DiDonato, the American mezzo soprano, is to deliver the Olympic anthem.
The tradition of a sacred flame burning throughout the Games was revived in 1936 Berlin Games.
According to sources, Laure Manaudou, Retired French swimmer, a gold medal winner in the 2004 Athens Olympics, is strongly tipped to be France’s first torchbearer in Olympia.
Actresses will play ancient priestesses coaxing the Olympic flame into life with the help of a parabolic polished mirror in the ritual.
On April 27, the torch will begin its journey to France aboard the Belem, a 19th-century three-masted sailing ship that was launched just weeks after the 1896 Games in Athens.
A French landmark, Belem spent nearly 20 years on trading voyages to Brazil, Guyana and the West Indies. The last remaining three-masted steel hull in France is scheduled to arrive in Marseille on May 8.
After that, 10,000 torch bearers will carry the torch in 64 regions in France. It’s a 12,000km journey through mainland France and French overseas territories in the Caribbean, Indian and Pacific Oceans, visiting 400 cities and dozens of attractions.
