Torch Relay Arrives in Paris for Bastille Day
by Philip Barker
Thierry Henry was the first runner to carry the Olympic Torch along the Champs-Élysées as the Relay arrived in Paris to coincide with Bastille Day, a national day of celebration in France.
“This is truly enormous, emotions are right up here,” admitted Henry.
“To do so on this famous avenue on this day is very special.”
Henry had been personally invited to carry the Flame by Paris 2024 President Tony Estanguet.
Un champion du monde 98 sur les Champs-Elysées pour lancer les 2 jours de relais à Paris 🤩
Merci Thierry et RDV le 24 juillet pour le 1er match de ton équipe de France aux Jeux, on sera tous derrière vous 💪 pic.twitter.com/pzWjH5OVI2
— Tony Estanguet – OLY (@TonyEstanguet) July 14, 2024
In 1998, when Henry helped France win the FIFA World Cup, the team’s victory parade took them down the same route.
Arsene Wenger, Henry’s club manager during his playing days at Arsenal had lit the cauldron in Strasbourg last month,
The French men’s side coached by Henry are set to make their bow against the United States in Marseille on July 24, the first day of Olympic competition.
“Having this opportunity to be able to participate, not on the field of course, this is really great! We are preparing with the team; we will try to go as far as possible,” Henry pledged.
He passed the Flame to Romane Dicko who won mixed team gold and individual bronze in judo at Tokyo three years ago.
The National Day celebrations had been combined with the Torch Relay.
Rio 2016 eventing gold medallist Thibaut Vallette carried the Flame down the avenue on horseback with an equestrian escort before a display of dressage.
Valette is now chief squire of the Cadre Noir de Saumur, the French corps of elite horsemen.
President Emmanuel Macron watched as the Flame was handed to a group of young athletes and the Olympic Rings were formed by cadets dressed in the Olympic colours.
There was also a flypast by the Patrouille de France trailing smoke in the national colours.
The President described the arrival of the Flame as “an exceptional moment.”
Moment exceptionnel de ce défilé du 14 Juillet, le colonel Thibault Vallette, médaillé d’or aux Jeux de Rio de Janeiro, fait entrer la flamme olympique des Jeux de Paris dans la capitale ! pic.twitter.com/dA2EW3W5Is
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) July 14, 2024
Many Parisians were nominated to carry the Flame in honour of their service to the community.
They included nurse and anaesthetist Claudine Laslaz and Lassana Bathily, a Muslim worker at a Jewish food store who had risked his own life to protect customers during an attack by a gunman.
They exchanged the Flame in front of the Pantheon.
As the Relay crossed the Place de la Bastille ballet dancers Dorothée Gilbert Hugo Marchand of the Opera Nationale de Paris carried the Flame in balletic fashion.
The Flame was also taken to Notre Dame escorted by members of the Paris Fire Service (Brigade Sapeurs Pompiers de Paris).
Claudie Haigneré, the first French woman astronaut took the Torch to the Sorbonne, the great hall where the resolution to revive the Olympics for the modern era had been made in 1894.
The Relay also passed through three leading Parisian museums including the Louvre where Kim Soek-Jin a member of K-Pop group BTS was greeted by hundreds of fans as he took the Flame towards the Louvre.
Concert pianist Lang Lang of China was a Torch bearer in front of the French Senate building. “It’s one of the most beautiful, romantic cities, and also for classical music, this is the heart of the romantic music capital,” Lang Lang said.
At the Beijing Games in 2008, Lang Lang carried the Flame and performed at the Opening Ceremony.
2008 was also the last time that the Olympic Flame had visited the French capital. The city was included in the global Relay to Beijing, styled as a “Journey of Harmony” but the day was marred by protests against Chinese government policy in Tibet.
There are no comments published yet.