Olympic Flame 2024: Journey from Olympia to Paris, Laure Manaudou First Torchbearer

It will be released on Tuesday April 16 around 11am, in Olympia, Greece. Then the first bearers of the flame will take turns to take it to Paris.

This tradition comes from Antiquity, when the Games took place in Olympia in Greece. But in modern history Olympic Gamesit was in 1928 that the Olympic flame was lit for the first time, for the Amsterdam Olympics. Since 1964, the flame has been rekindled in Olympia, Greece. For this edition, it is released on Tuesday April 16, in the temple of Hestia, in a ceremony inspired by the ancient ritual, with Greek actresses playing the priests.

The journey: from Olympia to Paris

It will first cross Greece to be brought to France ten days later, on April 26, at the Panathenaic stadium in Athens. Then she goes on board the Fillingone of the oldest three-masted sailing ships in Europe, pto reach Marseille on May 8. She will then cross France, including the West Indies and French Polynesia, until she arrives in Paris on July 26.

But for the regions, it is not free. For the Olympic torch to pass over their land, they had to pay 180,000 euros. So some regions refused to let the flame pass through their homes, this is true for Hérault, Vosges or Indre-et-Loire.

The bearers: Laure Manaudou the first torchbearer

The torchbearers who take turns to take it to Paris. They will be 11,000 in total, including themFamous people (athletes, artists, associations, etc.), but also anonymous people, chosen for their original profile or for their merit. It was the sports clubs, town halls and even the big companies that finance the Games that proposed the application, and it was the Olympic Committee that chose them.

We learned it on Monday early afternoon, yes the swimmer Laure Manaudou who will be the first French relay runner. She will get the flame from her hands of the Greek rower Stefanos Ntouskos, the first to carry the torch after it was lit in Olympia.