2024-04-27 12:07:33
The Olympic flame for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris will be handed over to the organizers at a ceremony at the Panathinaikos Stadium in Athens, where the first Olympic Games in modern history were held in 1896.
As Day.Az reports, the fire was lit on April 15 from the sun’s rays using a parabolic mirror in Ancient Olympia during the dress rehearsal of the action. On April 16, this could not be repeated due to heavy clouds, so to light the torch of the Olympic torch relay, a fire that “came down to earth” during the dress rehearsal and stored in a special lamp was used. The 11-day relay across Greece started from the ancient stadium.
The torch relay across Greece involves 600 torchbearers; it has already covered more than 5 thousand km across Greek territory, visiting some large islands, dozens of cities and many important archaeological sites in the country. On Friday, the relay has its last leg – the cities of Corinth, Megara, Marathon, the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounio (the capital region of Attica) and the Athens Panathinaikos stadium.
The flame will be brought to the stadium by the Greek athlete Andigoni Drizmbioti, who in 2022 became a two-time European champion in race walking at distances of 20 and 35 km. She is also a bronze medalist at the 2023 World Championships. The last torchbearer to run along the stadium track will be the captain of the Greek men’s water polo team, Ioannis Fountoulis, who competed with the team at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games and won a silver medal with his teammates at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020.
Before the final of the relay, a musical and gymnastic performance will be held at the stadium with the participation of dancers and students of the Greek-French school. The Kores vocal ensemble, accompanied by the National Symphony Orchestra of Hellenic Radio and Television, will perform the Olympic anthem and the Olympic flag will be raised. Then the national anthems of France and Greece will be played and their national flags will be raised. These anthems will be performed by the Greek-French singer Nana Mouskouri (Mouskhuri), a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. A group of priestesses and kouros (ancient Greek youths) will show a choreographic composition, after which the President of the National Olympic Committee of Greece, the President of the European Olympic Committees and a member of the International Olympic Committee, Spyros Kapralos, and the head of the Paris 2024 organizing committee, Tony Estangue, will deliver greetings. At the end of the ceremony, the torch with the Olympic flame will be handed over by High Priestess Maria Mina to Kapralos, who will present it to Estanga.
The Olympic flame will “spend the night” at the French Embassy in the Greek capital, and on Saturday will leave for France on board the sailing ship “Belem”, recognized in this country as a historical monument. The sailboat is already in the port of Piraeus, where a small farewell ceremony will take place on Saturday. The fire will be delivered to Marseille on May 8. It is expected that about 150 thousand people will attend the ceremony to welcome him in the old port of Marseille.
The relay through France will last 68 days and will end with the lighting of the Olympic flame at the opening ceremony of the 2024 Games on July 26. The Olympics will be held in Paris until August 11. Restrictions have been established for Russian and Belarusian athletes at the Games. At the Olympics, they will be able to perform exclusively in a neutral status, they will be prohibited from demonstrating any connection with their countries and taking part in team competitions. The Russian authorities consider the decision of the International Olympic Committee to be discriminatory and contrary to Olympic principles.
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