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Cyrille de la Morinerie, edited by Gauthier Delomez
modified to
7:47 a.m., May 7, 2024
The Olympic flame is due to arrive this Wednesday in Marseille, before a tour throughout France until the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, scheduled for July 26. Among all the porters who will take turns is a certain Roger Lebranchu, almost 102 years old, who participated in the London Games in 1948. Europe 1 met him.
At almost 102 years old, Roger Lebranchu is preparing to carry the Olympic flame on May 31 at Mont-Saint-Michel, more than twenty days after the arrival of the flame in France scheduled for this Wednesday in Marseille. As a wink from history, this former resistance fighter, deported, had already been selected for the London Games in 1948, 76 years ago. “The flame will allow me, as a symbol, to carry freedom,” the centenarian confides to Europe 1.
Roger Lebranchu.
Credits: Cyrille de la Morinerie
“I represent freedom after being imprisoned”
Being a bearer of the Olympic flame already brings back memories of the year 1943. “I was arrested as a resistance fighter, I was trying to cross into North Africa to join the Free French forces and then I was caught in the Pyrenees. I risked my life several times because I escaped from the Buchenwald camp (in Germany) on April 13, 1945. That’s why I left the horror of the camps and found myself with the Olympic flame. , it does something to me, I represent freedom after being imprisoned,” confides Roger Lebranchu.
The centenarian even shares that he gets “goosebumps”, just thinking about this big day, “like every time I hear ‘La Marseillaise'”, he emphasizes. Roger Lebranchu will celebrate his 102nd birthday next July, shortly before the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. His specialty was rowing, and he was still skiing at the age of 97. This lifelong sportsman is even Commander of the Legion of Honor.
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