“A Veritable Ode to Sport”

Paris 2024 announce team leaders for Torch Relay

by Philip Barker

Paris 2024 President Tony Estanguet has described plans for this year’s Olympic Torch Relay as “a veritable ode to sport,” as leaders of “teams” who are to carry the Flame on specific stages of its journey through France were revealed.

“The team relays will highlight the diversity of those who live for sport and bring it to life on a daily basis,” said Estanguet.

“Established champions, athletes with high hopes in their disciplines, club volunteers, association activists, and so on. They will be introducing the public to all sports on the programme.”

Each team is expected to comprise 24 participants,

At Paris 2024, we have purposefully opted for a sporting and team-based Torch Relay, because it is in the DNA of our project.” Estanguet explained.

Disability sport was the first team represented. A group of bearers is set to carry the Torch in Saint Raphael on May 10th, with 13-year-old wheelchair rugby player Antoine Avati from the Toulon Provence Méditerranée Club as the team captain.

Amongst those also chosen as team leaders is 2000 Olympic Rowing gold medallist and World Rowing President Jean-Christophe Rolland who is set to lead a team of rowers in the final week.

The final team scheduled to run on the day the Games open is to represent breaking, a new Olympic discipline. They are to be led by Pascal Blaize Ondzie, a pioneer of the breaking movement in France and now an international judge.

Of the 10,000 Torchbearers selected, some 3000 are to participate as part of these teams.

A further 1,000 have been chosen to carry the Paralympic Torch which will have an almost identical design in order to promote equality,

The Flame is set to be lit in Ancient Olympia on April 16 and is scheduled to tour Greece for approximately ten days.

It will then board the sailing ship Belem at Piraeus for a sea voyage to Marseille. It is expected to arrive on May 8th to begin the domestic Relay.

The Olympic Flame first passed through France on its way to the London 1948 Olympics,

It returned for the Winter Olympics at Grenoble in 1968 and Albertville 1992.

It was also taken to Paris as part of the international relay staged en route to Athens 2004.

The itinerary of the Torch Relay for Torino 2006 also included previous Olympic Hosts Grenoble and Albertville.

Two years later the Flame again passed through Paris as part of the Beijing 2008 International Relay, although the journey was disrupted severely by protests from human rights groups against the policy of the Chinese government in Tibet.