(Marseille) “Forever the first! “: in the spring of 2024, Marseille will be the first French city to host the Olympic flame before the Paris Games, a “natural and obvious” choice for the organizing committee.
Marseille is a city “passionate about sport, warm, popular and multicultural”, greeted AFP the president of the Paris Olympics organizing committee (Cojo) Tony Estanguet, also referring to Marseille’s link with Greece, the Massalia colony having been founded by Greeks around 600 BC
““Forever the first!” : there is also a little nod to what the people of Marseilles often say with this choice”, continued Tony Estanguet, evoking the slogan regularly taken up by football fans in the city, including the club, Olympique de Marseille, in 1993, became the first French club – and still the only one today – to win the European Cup of Champions Clubs, ancestor of the Champions League.
In concrete terms, the Olympic flame will arrive in Marseille aboard the Bélem, one of the oldest three-masters in Europe still sailing, after a ten-day crossing from Greece, where, as in each edition of the Games, it will have previously been lit during a ceremony at Olympia.
His arrival will be followed by a “great popular festival” on the quays of Marseille, which will host the sailing events and ten meetings of the women’s and men’s football tournaments, during these third Paris Olympic Games, from July 26 to August 11, 2024.
If the exact date of the arrival of the flame in Marseille has not been specified by Tony Estanguet, the official site of the Paris-2024 Olympic Games specifies that “the flame will visit all regions of France from April 2024 “.
“Getting off to a good start”
“In sport, to succeed, we often say that you have to get off to a good start, that’s why it’s important for us that it’s a good party,” pleaded Tony Estanguet, specifying that the complete course of the flame to Paris, after its arrival in France, should be announced at the end of May, just over a year before the Games.
Before the start of the Olympics, “sixty territories” should host the flame, according to the president of the Cojo. The choice of Marseille to start the journey of the flame in France “was our responsibility, it fell a little like evidence, we found that it was the most logical and the most coherent”.
“Marseille was founded by Greeks who came from Phocaea 2600 years ago: by asking to welcome the flame to our shores, we wanted to reconnect with this great history of sharing, fraternity, diversity and solidarity”, also greeted the DVG mayor of Marseille Benoît Payan, quoted in a press release.
From July, the city will have a small foretaste of the Games, with sailing “test events”, life-size rehearsals of the 2024 Olympic events, which will allow athletes to familiarize themselves with the harbor of Marseille and its winds, or even to certain to play their qualification for the events.
“It will be all the more ‘dimensioning’ as there are twice as many competitors for the ‘test events’ as for the Olympic Games, as these are qualification events”, the maritime prefect recently explained to AFP. of the Mediterranean, Vice-Admiral Gilles Boidevezi.
“Afterwards, we have a year to take into account any feedback. What is complicated is that the Olympics take place during the first 15 days of August, the period when here we have the most needs on the Mediterranean coast”, he added, stressing that during the events of the Games themselves “no port of Marseille (would be) blocked”.
“It’s a challenge, but as we have been organizing for some time, we are confident,” he concluded.