In one year to the day, the Meuse will be at the center of all attention. In any case, this is what the elected representatives of this rural department in the east of France hope for. Saturday June 29, 2024, the Olympic torch relay will be in Meuse and will stop in Verdun. It is now official, and it was time, according to Philippe Colson: “The real work can begin! »throw it advisor to the president of the county council and project leader for more than a year.
The revelation of the departments and stage cities of the relay – which will cross France for nearly three months, from May 8 to July 26, 2024 – was to remain the prerogative of the Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Cojop), the elected locals being asked to remain silent until then. After the official announcement with great fanfare on June 23, the mayors of Meuse were, in turn, able to detail the sites crossed in their department during a press briefing, Thursday June 29, in Bar-le-Duc.
Unsurprisingly, and according to the model established by Paris 2024, Meuse residents will be able to see the flame in seven places during the day: the three most populated cities (Commercy, Bar-le-Duc and Verdun) and four other emblematic places (Gondrecourt-le-Château, Lake Madine, the battlefield of Verdun and Montmédy). Two convoys will set off in parallel and on each “segment”, the relay route will be between 1 km and 7 km.
“Our primary imperativeexplains Matthieu Etancelin, manager of the Paris 2024 torch relay route in charge of the Meuse, is that the Olympic flame is lit every evening at 7:30 p.m. sharp on the stage city celebration site. From there, we build the route of the two convoys over the day in reverse. Everything is timed and must be optimized: the relay itself on each segment – it takes about four minutes for each torchbearer to cover the two hundred meters that he will be responsible for covering –, but also the transfer times to connect two sites . »
The choice of Verdun as a stopover town was not disputed
While discussions between Paris 2024 and the department began more than a year ago, the choice of sites and the order of passage have been refined in recent weeks. A first day of scouting took place in the Meuse in mid-April in order to compare the planned routes with the reality on the ground.
Aboard the van in the colors of the Meuse, Matthieu Etancelin and Gilles Leforestier, sports advisor to the department, crisscrossed the four main sites in the center of the Meuse. Places of interest, width of the roads, height of the porches or size of the car parks to accommodate the many vehicles that make up the convoys, this day made it possible to better understand the operational logistical constraints.
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