The remarkable entry of the Olympic flame into France, through the Old Port of Marseille on Wednesday May 8, launched the start of its relay. The next day, it was Basile Boli, iconic football player from Olympique de Marseille, who was the first bearer of the torch, before the flame lit up Marseille all day and Didier Drogba, another glory of Marseille football , sets the Olympic cauldron ablaze at the foot of the Stade-Vélodrome.
This procession through the streets of Marseille is only the first of sixty-eight stages of the torch relay in which 10,000 torchbearers participate: until July 26, the fire of Olympia will cross 64 territories, including six overseas, and more than 400 cities in France. The world offers you to know, in detail, the route of the Olympic torch relay in order to know if it passes near you, or the places of your next vacation, with the day, the stopover city, the different segments and the celebration sites.
In the majority of cases, the Olympic flame passes through a different department each day. In order for the fire to be visible in as many places as possible, in twenty-four hours, the Paris 2024 organization has opted for two “convoys” :
- A “engagement convoy” which crosses four cities and “takes the form of a segment around four kilometers”, explains the Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Cojop). Let’s take the example of the torch relay in Aude, Thursday May 16: the day will be broken down into a segment in Narbonne (8:55 a.m. – 9:40 a.m.), Limoux (12 p.m. – 12:45 p.m.), Castelnaudary ( 3:25 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.) and Carcassone (6 p.m. – 7:20 p.m.).
- A “agile convoy” for a torch relay “over a shorter distance or a simple presentation of the torch in a symbolic place”. He is supposed to visit “three emblematic sites” daily. Still with the Aude example: Peyrepertuse fortress (8:15 a.m. – 8:35 a.m.), Lagrasse (11:30 a.m. – 11:50 a.m.) and Gruissan (4:40 p.m. – 5:10 p.m.).
As the segments follow one another, the flame should not be lit in two places at the same time, according to Paris 2024 which ensures that “at the end of each segment, the fire from the torch is returned to a lantern to be carried to the next segment”specifying that this movement takes place without the flame being visible.
As for the celebration sites, located in the last town crossed, also called “stopover town”, they will be open to the public between 3:30 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. The Cojop promises to “numerous festivities (…) organized” before the lighting ceremony of the Olympic cauldron by the last bearer of the day.