Olympic Games 2024 in Paris: the Olympic flame rises along Belem towards Marseille

Let’s go on a big journey. After being handed over to France on Friday and spending the night at the French embassy in Athens, kept in an Olympic lantern, the flame began its journey to France on Saturday aboard the three-masted barque Belen, a nineteenth-century ship.

The flame was brought to Belem by the head of the Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Cojop), Tony Estangue. The departure of the Belen, with 16 young scouts selected by the Caisse d’Epargne to accompany the fire, took place this Saturday shortly before 10 a.m. from the port of Piraeus. Destination of the Corinth Canal, which is currently undergoing repairs but which will be exclusively open to the passage of the majestic three-masted ship, then to Sicily, Corsica and Marseille, where it will dock in the Old Port on May 8 at 19:00 after the day of the parade in the harbor.

It is the swimmer Florent Manadou who will be given the honor of becoming the first bearer of the flame on French soil.

Arriving at the Old Port on May 8, the flame will begin its journey to France. He will cross the entire country through 450 cities, as well as the Antilles and French Polynesia, and arrive in Paris on the opening ceremony of the Games, July 26. The event will last until August 11 in an international context marked, in particular, by conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Athens Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Kastera expressed hope at a press briefing that “these Games will create a new standard in the organization of major sporting events.” She recalled that these Olympic Games will be the first ever “ecological, equal and decentralized” and will be held in 73 communities.