The flame for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games will be lit on April 16, marking the countdown to the July 26-August 11 event in the French capital, organizers said on Friday, confirming a story previously published by Reuters. The flame will be lit in ancient Greek Olympia, the cradle of the Games, and will remain in the country until it leaves for France from Athens on April 27.
It will arrive in Marseille on May 8. The torch relay will remain on French European territory—particularly passing through Montpellier, Corsica, Bordeaux, and Mont Saint Michel—until June 7, when it will depart by boat from the port city of Brest for a relay on the French territory of overseas. She will return to mainland France by boat on June 18. "It is going to be spectacular and it will be a showcase for all our territories," declared the president of Paris 2024, Tony Estanguet, at a ceremony held at the Sorbonne University in the French capital.
The flame will then pass through Strasbourg, Reims and Lille, among others, before a relay in Paris on July 14 and 15 — which will pass through the Panthéon and through the National Assembly and Senate (the lower and upper houses of Parliament). —, with some 400 cities visited in total.
In a traditional ceremony at the site of the ancient Games, an actress playing a high priestess lights the torch for each edition—summer or winter—using a parabolic mirror before passing the flame to the first torchbearer at the edge of the ancient Olympic stadium in Olympia.
After a short stint in Greece, the flame is handed over to the host city. The organizers of Paris have communicated that they will use a three-masted ship, the "Belem", to take it to the port city of Marseille, where the sailing competitions of the Olympic Games will take place. Normally the flame is transported by plane to the host city of the Olympic Games. Marseille, founded by the Greek colonists from Phocea around 600 BC, is the starting point of the French stage of the relay.
Paris 2024 organizers have been planning to install the Olympic flame on the Eiffel Tower, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters last month.
Friday's ceremony gave organizers a moment's respite after their venue was searched by police on Tuesday as part of a preliminary investigation into alleged corruption.
