The flame for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games was ignited in a traditional ceremony at ancient Olympia on Tuesday, marking the culmination of seven years of preparation for the Games, which will commence on July 26.
In a departure from the norm, Greek actress Mary Mina, portraying the high priestess, used a backup flame instead of a parabolic mirror to light the torch, as cloudy skies loomed over the event. The torch relay will now journey through Greece and France.
The relay will conclude with the lighting of the Olympic flame at the opening ceremony in Paris, which will be the city’s third time hosting the Summer Olympics, following its previous hosting duties in 1900 and 1924.
“In these difficult times we are living through, with wars and conflicts on the rise, people are fed up with all the hate, the aggression, and negative news they are facing day in and day out,” International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach said in his speech.
“We are longing for something that brings us together, something that is unifying, something that gives us hope. The Olympic flame that we are lighting today is the symbol of this hope.”
The flame will be officially handed over to Paris Games organizers in Athens’s Panathenaic Stadium, site of the first modern Games in 1896, on April 26 after an 11-day relay across Greece.
It will then depart the next day for France aboard a three-masted ship, the “Belem,” where it will arrive on May 8 in Marseille, with up to 150,000 people expected to attend the ceremony in the southern city’s Old Port.
Marseille, founded by the Greek settlers of Phocaea around 600 B.C., will host the sailing competitions.
The French torch relay will last 68 days and will end in Paris with the lighting of the Olympic flame on July 26.
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