Marseille Mayor, Benoît Payan, has announced that the Olympic Flame for the Paris 2024 games will arrive in the city on May 8th next year. Payan has promised that a great popular festival will be organized on the Old Port to celebrate the occasion, and the millennial history of the founding of the city will be commemorated. The Stade Vélodrome will also display a giant Olympic mosaic, depicting the Olympic Rings set beneath the date 2024 against the light blue and white colors of the club, before hosting ten Olympic matches in men's and women's football. The Olympic sailing regatta will take place in the marina.
The Paris 2024 Flame will arrive in Marseille on the three-masted tall ship, "Belem," owned by the Caisse d'Epargne Belem Foundation, after a 10-day voyage across the Mediterranean from Greece, where the Flame will be lit in Ancient Olympia from the rays of the sun. The Greek colony of Massalia was founded in what is now Marseille some 2,600 years ago, around 600BC, and the arrival by sea is intended to signify the environmental awareness of the Paris 2024 games.
The Flame is to travel across the 60 departments of France before a scheduled arrival in Paris on July 14th, the French national day which commemorates the storming of the Bastille prison during the French revolution in 1789. It will be carried in Torches designed by Marcel Lehanneur, who has also been commissioned to create the Cauldron. The Flame is expected to be placed near the Eiffel Tower, although no details have been revealed. It will be ignited in the Cauldron at the conclusion of the Opening Ceremony along the River Seine on July 26th.
The Torch Relay's itinerary details will be revealed at the Sorbonne University on June 23rd, now designated as Olympic Day. It was at the Sorbonne on June 23rd in 1894 that it had been agreed to revive the Olympic Games for the modern era.
The Marseille festival will be a momentous occasion to celebrate the arrival of the Olympic Flame for the Paris 2024 games, and it will showcase the city's rich history and its environmental awareness.
The Torch Relay's itinerary details, which are set to be unveiled on Olympic Day, will give an insight into the journey of the Flame across the 60 departments of France, leading to its final arrival in Paris on July 14th. The excitement and anticipation of the Paris 2024 games continue to build, and the arrival of the Flame in Marseille will be an unforgettable moment for sports fans across the world.
