(Paris) Less than a week before the start of the Paralympic Games, the flame will be lit on Saturday in England, where the movement was born in the post-war period, before spreading during a quick trip through around fifty cities in France.
In total, twelve torches, including a main one, will shine for four days (August 25-28) across France before reaching Paris and the Olympic cauldron, housed in the heart of the Tuileries Gardens, which will once again welcome the public free of charge from August 29, the day after the opening ceremony, until the closing ceremony on September 8.
While France is hosting the Paralympic Games for the first time, the very first edition of the Games – or at least its genesis – dates back to 1948, when German neurologist Ludwig Guttmann organised sporting events for veterans of the Second World War who had become paraplegic or confined to wheelchairs at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, northwest of London.
It is from this location that the flame will be lit during a ceremony on Saturday at midday, in the presence of Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris-2024 organizing committee, and Andrew Parsons, president of the International Paralympic Committee. It will reach France the following day via the Channel Tunnel.
Twenty-four British torchbearers, launched into the tunnel, will join twenty-four French torchbearers halfway to pass the baton to Calais.
“We know from experience that Paralympic sport is less mobilizing, but now I think we’re going to be able to ride the wave of Olympic enthusiasm,” hopes Pascal Pestre, the city’s first deputy mayor, who reminds AFP that the Olympic flame also passed through Calais in July.
A “flame festival”, reproduced in the other stopover towns, will be organized with a limit of 3,000 people for security reasons, indicated the Pas-de-Calais prefecture.
Twelve days, twelve flames
The other eleven flames – symbolizing the eleven days of competition after the opening ceremony – will be lit simultaneously, at the start in Strasbourg, Montpellier or even Lourdes and Lorient before converging on Paris via other stopover cities.
Among the designated carriers for Sunday, we find in particular the eight-time Paralympic ski champion Marie Bochet in Thonon-les-Bains or the French cyclist Audrey Cordon-Ragot in Lorient, according to the announcement made Thursday evening by Paris-2024, which specifies that changes can take place up until the evening before.
A thirteenth flame will be lit on Sunday, on the occasion of the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Paris.
DJ Barbara Butch, star of the drag queen tableau at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on July 26, and French-Iranian comic book author and director Marjane Satrapi, who created the official Paris 2024 tapestry, will conclude this Parisian relay on the main stage of the “Rock en Seine” festival, near the capital.
More than 1.75 million tickets sold
Lyon did not host the Olympic flame because of the high cost of the operation – some departments considered the cost of 180,000 euros prohibitive. For the Paralympics, it will be on August 26.
“It is part of the city’s policy to promote and develop Paralympic sport, and to give it visibility. It was a good opportunity,” the city hall explained to AFP.
In total, according to the organizing committee, around fifty cities will be crossed by these relays, with more than 1000 carriers and six collective relays (in Antibes, Chambly, Vichy, Fontainebleau, Bobigny and Paris) aiming to honor people working in the world of para sport such as volunteers or helpers.
The main flame, coming from Stoke Mandeville, will pass through Calais, Arras, Amiens, Louviers and Chambly before arriving in Île-de-France.
The Paralympic Games will be launched on August 28 with an opening ceremony between the Champs-Élysées and the Place de la Concorde, with Thomas Jolly once again as the mastermind.
Some 2.5 million tickets were put on sale for the event. As of Wednesday, just over 1.75 million had been sold or allocated, according to the organizers.