Paris 2024 torch lit in ancient Olympia, relay under way
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[April 16, 2024]
By Karolos Grohmann
ANCIENT OLYMPIA, Greece (Reuters) -The torch for the Paris 2024
Olympic Games was lit in ancient Olympia in a traditional ceremony
on Tuesday, marking the final stretch of the seven-year preparations
for the Games' start on July 26.
Greek actress Mary Mina, playing the role of high priestess, lit the
torch using a backup flame instead of a parabolic mirror that is
normally used, due to cloudy skies, for the start of a relay in
Greece and France.
It will culminate with the lighting of the Olympic flame in the
French capital at the opening ceremony. Paris will host the summer
Olympics for a third time after 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 which 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."
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The IOC has cleared the way for Russian and Belarusian athletes to
compete at the Olympics despite the ongoing war in Ukraine but they
will do so as neutral athletes with no national flag or anthem, a
decision that angered Moscow.
French President Emmanuel Macron also said last week Russia would be
asked to observe a ceasefire in Ukraine during the Paris Olympics.
The Kremlin said Ukraine might use it as an opportunity to regroup
and rearm.
Suspending armed conflicts under an Olympic truce during the Games
was a standard practice in ancient Greece.
TORCH RELAY
The high priestess then lit the torch of the first runner of the
relay, Greece's Olympic rowing champion Stefanos Ntouskos.
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![](../images/041624PIX/sports6.jpg)
Paris 2024 Olympics - Olympic Flame Lighting Ceremony - Ancient
Olympia, Greece - April 16, 2024 The first torchbearer Greek rower
Stefanos Ntouskos, lights the touch of the second torchbearer French
swimmer Laure Manaudou during the torch relay after the flame
lighting ceremony for the Paris 2024 Olympics. REUTERS/Alkis
Konstantinidis
![](../images/ads/current/graue_lda_4_2021.png)
After a short run he then handed the flame on to
France's three-time Olympic medallist in swimming and head of Paris'
Olympic torch relay, Laure Manaudou, as the representative of the
host city.
The flame will be officially handed over to Paris Games organisers
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 on board 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.
The last torch bearer in Marseille will climb on the roof of the
Velodrome stadium on May 9, organisers said.
Marseille, founded by the Greek settlers of Phocaea around 600 BC,
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.
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Additional reporting by Julien
Pretot; Editing by Christian Radnedge) [© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
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