Published
Video length: 1 min
Basil Boli
The torch will cross France for 78 days, in France and overseas, to arrive on July 26 in Paris, where the Olympic cauldron will be lit.
(FRANCE TELEVISIONS)
The torch will cross France for 78 days, in France and overseas, to arrive on July 26 in Paris, where the Olympic cauldron will be lit.
The Olympic torch relay began Thursday, May 9 in Marseille, from the emblematic Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde basilica. Basile Boli, legend of Marseille football, was the first to carry the torch. The former French international, the only scorer in the victory of Olympique de Marseille in the final of the 1993 European Champion Clubs’ Cup, began the torch relay just under the famous golden statue of the “Bonne- Mother” who watches over the second largest city in France.
The day before, the first Olympic cauldron was set ablaze in the Old Port, by Marseille rapper Jul, in front of 150,000 people. From Thursday, the torch will cross France, for 78 days in France and overseas, to arrive on July 26 in Paris, where the Olympic cauldron will be lit. For this great torch relay, a tradition born during the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Marseille will be the only city, with Paris, to be crossed over an entire day.
A collective of European torchbearers
Like Wednesday, an important security system is implemented to protect the torch and its bearers. “We will have mobile and civilian forces as well as an anti-drone device”summarized Bouches-du-Rhône police prefect Pierre-Edouard Colliex, recalling that traffic and parking will be prohibited on the relay route.
Throughout its journey through France’s second city, the flame will be carried by nearly 200 torchbearers, athletes, artists and anonymous people, but also a collective of 28 European athletes, May 9 also being Europe Day.
The Ukrainian gymnast Maria Vysochanska, whose father fought on the front against the Russian invasion, will be the captain of this collective relay in which the former French pole vaulter Jean Galfione, Olympic champion in 1996 in Atlanta, or the Polish Anita Wlodarczyk, three-time reigning Olympic hammer throw champion.