The Organizing Committee for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games has lifted a new corner of the veil in one of the most symbolic events before the start of the events, the torch relay which will arrive in Marseille on May 8. For the first time, individual relays will be supplemented by collective relays, led by captains.
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Although we will certainly have to wait until the last moment to know who will light the Olympic flame on July 26, Paris 2024 continues to provide information on those who will have the honor of carrying the torch for a few minutes from May 8. While waiting for the names of the individual relayers to be revealed on January 15, the Organizing Committee has revealed the identity of the collective relay captains.
3,000 “scouts” out of the 11,000 selected will take part in this unique concept, around a captain. For each of these 69 specific relays, a group of 24 people (12 men and 12 women), chosen by the 34 French Olympic sports federations – as well as by the Tahitian surfing federation for the passage to Polynesia, at the rate of two relays chosen by federation, with the desire to favor local roots for recruitment.
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Celebrities with torches in hand
If many of these captains are anonymous – volunteers, presidents of clubs or associations – illustrious glories of French sport will lead these groups on the day of their relay: Laurent Tillie (coach of the French men’s volleyball team). ball Olympic champion in Tokyo in 2021) on May 12 in Bouches-du-Rhône, Laura Flessel (five-time Olympic fencing medalist), on June 15 in her native department of Guadeloupe or Pascal Gentil, on July 24 in Sarcelles (north from Paris).
The double Olympic bronze medalist in taekwondo at the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games very much hoped to play this role. “ I registered everywhere! With the ADP group (Aéroports de Paris) where I work for the federation. The town of Fontenay-sous-Bois, where I started taekwondo in 1991, even offered it to me. Finally, it paid off. It’s a source of immense pride since I participated in the Games as an athlete and then as an elected official. Today, I am one of the torchbearers and it is a great joy for me. »
Iconic places
Other celebrities will lead their groups to the heart of historic places which will serve as the backdrop for spectacular relays: the ascent of Mont Ventoux on the bike of 2008 Olympic BMX champion Anne-Caroline Chausson, a relay on horseback on Omaha Beach on May 30, a week before the 80th anniversary of the Landing or the passage through Mont Saint-Michel, led by the cyclist Guillaume Martin.
The 200 collective Paralympic torch relays will take place over a much shorter period, from August 25 to 28, with teams reduced to six torchbearers, and will be guided by the promotion of young paraathletes, associations and people’s caregivers. in a situation of disability.
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