2023-04-30 23:44:19
From Phocaea to Paris, the loop is complete. The Olympic flame for the Paris 2024 Games will land in France on May 8, 2024, as planned in Marseille, the city’s mayor, Benoît Payan, announced on Sunday. But he specified the date, May 8, 2024. That is 79 days before the start official competitions.
“See you on May 8, 2024 for the arrival of the Olympic flame in Marseille,” said Benoît Payan on Twitter, information confirmed by the town hall afterwards. On this occasion, “a great popular festival will be organized on the Old Port to celebrate together the greatest sporting competition in the world and the millennial history of the founding of our city! “, added the mayor of the second city of France.
Under his message posted on the social network is a photo of the huge tifo deployed in a stand at the Vélodrome stadium before the start of the Ligue 1 match between OM and Auxerre, tifo representing the Olympic flame and its rings at the middle of the white and sky blue colors of Marseille and framed on the sides by the blood and gold of Provence.
If the arrival of the Olympic flame by Marseille was known since the beginning of February, it is the date of this arrival which was specified Sunday evening by Benoît Payan. As announced during a press conference at the Marseille town hall on February 3, the flame will land from the Bélem, one of the oldest three-masters in Europe still sailing, after a crossing of around ten days from Greece, where, as for each edition of the Games, it will have been lit during a ceremony in Olympia.
The route announced at the end of May 2023
The Phocaean city has a strong link with Greece, the Massalia colony having been founded by Greeks around 600 BC “Marseille was founded by Greeks who came from Phocaea 2,600 years ago: by asking to welcome the flame on our shores, we wanted to reconnect with this great story of sharing, fraternity, diversity and solidarity”, greeted Benoît Payan in February.
The complete journey of the flame to Paris, after its arrival in Marseille, should be announced at the end of May, just over a year from the Games, said Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris Olympics organizing committee ( Cojo). The only certainty for the moment: after its arrival in Marseille, the flame will cross around sixty “territories” before arriving in Paris on July 14, ten days before the start of the Games.
During the Games (July 26 to August 11, 2024), Marseille will host the sailing events as well as ten matches of the women’s and men’s football tournaments, at the Vélodrome stadium.
#Paris #Olympics #Olympic #flame #land #Marseille