(Paris) A simple metal ring which will let the fire reflect on an undulated surface: the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games revealed on Monday the design of the cauldrons which will welcome the Olympic flame on the evenings of its crossing of France.
The flame of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, lit on April 16 in Olympia in Greece, will arrive on May 8 in Marseille, aboard the three-masted Belém. From there, she will begin a journey across France, crossing 450 towns on the arm of 11,000 flame bearers, to reach Paris on July 26.
But for the night and during the celebrations, the precious flame will be placed in a “cauldron”. This will “make an impression”, hopes Delphine Moulin, director of the Paris-2024 celebrations, “since we will have the opportunity to light it 65 times on 65 celebration sites”.
The cauldron, designed like the Olympic torch by designer Mathieu Lehanneur, takes the form of a stainless steel ring 1.35 m in diameter – and not a tank – surmounting a base covered with a corrugated hydroformed sheet metal plate. .
“It’s an extremely simple object,” Mr. Lehanneur described during a presentation to the press, “it’s a ring that just seems to be in suspension, just floating above a base where we will find this water play” present on the Olympic torch, aquatic undulations which “obviously speak to us of the Seine”, like a “teaser of the opening ceremony”.
The object, whose pale color was designed by “mixing a gold, silver and bronze medal”, “takes on its full meaning when it is set alight”, estimates its designer, thanks to the “reflections between this sheet metal in liquid relief and the flame which seems to float above.
PHOTO THOMAS SAMSON, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Overall, “the idea for the cauldron was to make it a symbol of fraternity”, since “it is the object around which we will gather every evening of the relay”, adds Mr. Lehanneur. The ring constituted “the clearest, most immediate symbol to recall this fraternity”, he estimated.
In total, 20 cauldrons will be manufactured by ArcelorMittal to cover the needs of the Olympic and Paralympic relay.
Technically, the inside of the ring is pierced with 260 microholes of one and a half millimeters from which the gas will come out to maintain combustion, which will arrive through pipes hidden in the feet of the object.
The Olympic torches will not be offered for purchase to torchbearers, as was traditionally the case, the number of torches produced having been divided by five compared to previous editions.
The 11,000 bearers will, however, receive a golden steel ring, a replica of the “heart of the Torch”, the ring which allows the two parts of the torch to be assembled. These commemorative rings, on which the words “Paris 2024 Torch Bearer” are engraved, will also be manufactured by ArcelorMittal.
The world’s second largest steelmaker, which also manufactures the Olympic torches and the Olympic rings for the Eiffel Tower, did not wish to reveal the amount of the contract for these three objects.