An Olympic torch for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in recycled steel manufactured by ArcelorMittal, undergoing final assembly at the Guy Degrenne factory in Vire (Calvados) on November 17, 2024 (AFP / Lou Benoist)
“Our young engineers will have had the chance to start their careers with it”: the recycled steel torch which will carry the flame of Olympism in the spring reflects another flame, pride, in the eyes of the workers and engineers who carry it have manufactured.
Even before the Olympic flame crosses 64 departments next year, the torch which will welcome it, the manufacture of which in (small) series began on Friday in Vire in Calvados, benefited from a tour of France of know-how make industrial.
Half a dozen factories in different regions contributed to its production, 2,000 copies.
In the shape of a long stylized flame, the 70 centimeter high object, designed by designer Mathieu Lehanneur, is made up of two flared steel tubes, symmetrically fitted into each other at their widest part.
Eric Niedziela, president of the steel group ArcelorMittal brandishing one of the Olympic torches made from recycled steel for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, on November 17, 2023 in Vire (Calvados) (AFP / Lou Benoist)
“It is a fairly technological object with enormous constraints for the upper part, there must be no gas leak, nor dispersion of the flame, the flame must not go out if it rains or if it there is wind, and moreover we wanted it to be made of steel as carbon-free as possible”, explains Eric Niedziela, president of the ArcelorMittal steel group in France, and responsible for the entire torch manufacturing project.
In metal, to be decarbonized, nothing better than recycled. New steel is a major emitter of CO2 due to the coal used to deoxidize iron ore.
– Car sheets and washing machines –
Nearly five tonnes of scrap metal, car sheets and washing machines were melted this summer in an electric oven in Châteauneuf, in the Loire, explains Franck Wasilewski, head of the Torch project at ArcelorMittal.
The steel obtained was rolled (flattened) in Florange, in Moselle, where 2,000 employees still work in the steel industry, even after the closure of the blast furnaces in 2012.
A worker at the Guy Degrenne factory in Vire (Calvados) stamps trapezoidal recycled steel plates which take the shape of a half-tube used to make the symbolic torch for the 2024 Olympic Games, in Vire (Calvados) on November 17 2023 (AFP / LOU BENOIST)
The long, thin tongue of steel, 0.7 millimeters thick, coming out of the rolling mills was cut into plates measuring 3 x 1.5 meters in a third factory of the steelmaker, in Woippy (Moselle).
From heavy industry to tableware: the plates are delivered in Normandy to the Guy Degrenne factory in Vire. Here we usually make stainless steel cutlery and dishes.
Workers start by stamping trapezoidal plates which take the shape of a half-tube. Laser cutting cuts clean edges and traces the Olympic logo. Then welding step to crimp the tube.
“We laser weld at 5/100th of a millimeter, it’s very precise, on the order of a hair,” explains Nicolas Dessoude, the director of the factory. The challenge is to follow the curve of the torch without expanding the metal sheet. An engineer worked “four months” to define the complex parameters of this weld.
– Cleanable, refillable –
The next step involves molding or grooving on tooling specially designed to undulate the metal like a wave.
An employee works on laser quality control on the 2024 Olympic Games torch, made from recycled steel, in the Guy Degrenne factory in Vire (Calvados), November 17, 2023 (AFP / Lou Benoist)
“We are very proud, it highlights us,” comments Raynald, 54, press operator-adjuster, worker for 34 years at Guy Degrenne. 300 parts must leave the factory per week.
In Ferrière-en-Brie (Seine-et-Marne) and Saint-Quentin-Fallavier (Isère) the torch halves receive a state-of-the-art surface treatment: microblasting to give a satin appearance on the top, mirror polishing on the lower part. This is followed by high-tech coatings used in luxury or the space industry.
Return to Vire for final assembly: the two bodies of the torch are fitted together, the burner integrated inside. Stored in marine plywood boxes custom-made by a Norman carpentry, they will be stored in a warehouse at an undisclosed address.
The 2024 torch is for the first time reusable, cleanable, refillable with gas, and capable of carrying out around ten successive stages, symbolically for Games which would like to promote the idea of sobriety.
The logo of the 2024 Olympic Games engraved on the recycled steel torch assembled in a Guy Degrenne factory in Vire (Calvados) on November 17, 2023 (AFP / LOU BENOIST)
During the previous Olympics, more than 10,000 torches had been manufactured, as many as carriers, according to Delphine Moulin, director of the Paris 2024 celebrations. This year, “2,000 copies” will be enough “for the 11,000 carriers who will take turns between the Greek site of Olympia and Paris from April 16.
The flame and its recycled torches will arrive in France on May 8, in Marseille.