French former football player Basile Boli holds the Olympic Torch at the Notre Dame de la Garde Basilica in Marseille on 9 May 2024. (Photo by CHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP)
- The Olympic torch relay began in Marseille, France on Thursday.
- It is just the start of a 12 000-kilometre torch relay across France and its far-flung overseas territories before the opening ceremony in Paris on 26 July.
- The Paris Olympics will run from 26 July – 11 August, followed by the Paralympics from 28 August – 8 September.
- For more on Olympic sports, visit our dedicated page.
The Olympic torch relay began in Marseille on Thursday with football
legend Basile Boli taking the flame in front of the iconic basilica of
Notre-Dame de la Garde, a day after it made a spectacular entrance by
sea.
The former French international, who scored the only goal in
Marseille’s victory over AC Milan in the 1993 European Champion Clubs’
Cup final, set off at 08:20 just beneath the famous golden
statue of the “Good Mother”, which watches over France’s second-largest
city.
“It makes the heart beat and it’s fantastic,” said Boli.
“It’s the Olympic flame, it’s the symbol of sport, of living together, of everything we can hope for in the world.”
There will be a strong football element to the first of 78 days of
the torch relay with Ivory Coast great Didier Drogba also among the
torch bearers in the southern port city on Thursday.
The torch will also visit the Stade Velodrome, home of Marseille’s
team which will host 10 matches during the men’s and women’s Olympic
football competitions.
It is just the start of a 12 000-kilometre torch relay
across France and its far-flung overseas territories before the opening
ceremony in Paris on 26 July.
The flame arrived on French soil at Marseille on Wednesday on
board the 19th-century sailing ship Belem in front of 150,000 spectators
for a ceremony that posed a first major security test for organisers of
the 2024 Paris Games.
As the ship entered Marseille’s Old Port with hundreds of small
boats trailing behind, planes from the Patrouille de France display team
traced the Olympic rings in the sky and then the red, white and blue of
the French flag.
READ | Paris 2024 Olympic Games flame lit in ancient Olympia
Fireworks were fired as the Belem docked after its 12-day voyage
from Greece, where the flame was lit in ancient Olympia on 16 April.
Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer Florent Manaudou carried the
torch from the ship and passed it to Paralympic champion sprinter
Nantenin Keita, who handed it to French rapper Jul to light a cauldron.
Organisers are hoping the first public spectacle of the Games on
French soil will help build excitement after a row about the price of
Olympics tickets and concerns about security.
President Emmanuel Macron praised the “unprecedented effort” of
the security forces in Marseille. And after watching the flame arrive,
he said he hoped the Olympics would bring France together.
“I want our compatriots to imagine that this is a moment of unity
and that we are capable of it and that we can be proud of it,” he said.
After the Covid-hit edition in Tokyo in 2021 and the
corruption-tainted Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016, the Paris Olympics are
seen as an important moment for the sporting extravaganza.
In the background in Marseille, around 6 000 security forces are on
duty at a time when the country is on its highest terror alert.
Extremely tight security will be a constant feature as the torch
travels through more than 450 French towns and cities, and passes by
dozens of tourist attractions including Mont Saint Michel. It will also
visit France’s overseas territories including Guadeloupe, New Caledonia
and Reunion.
Around 200 members of the security forces are set to be positioned
permanently around the torch, including an anti-terror SWAT team and an
anti-drone operatives.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has referred to the risk of
protests, including from far-left groups or environmental activists such
as Extinction Rebellion.
Organisers have promised a “spectacular” and “iconic” Olympics and
Paralympics, with much of the sport set to take place in venues around
the City of Light including at the Eiffel Tower and the Invalides.
The opening ceremony for the Olympics on 26 July will take place in
boats on the river Seine in a radical departure from past Games which
have opened in the main stadium.
However President Macron said last month the opening ceremony could move if the security risk was too high.
All of the major infrastructure has been completed with only two
new permanent sporting venues built in a bid to reduce the financial
cost and carbon emissions.
The Paris Olympics will run from 26 July – 11 August, followed by the Paralympics from 28 August – 8 September.