The Olympic torch was lit in Greece 100 days after the Paris Games

ServiceThe journey of the torch

The torch was lit today in Olympia, beginning a 5,000 km journey across Greece over eleven days

April 16, 2024

The first torchbearer, Greek Olympic gold medalist Stefanos Douskos, right, passes the flame to the first French torchbearer, three-time Olympic medalist Laure Manaudou, after the official flame lighting ceremony for the Paris Olympics, at the site of Ancient Olympia, Greece, Tuesday 16 April 2024. The flame will be transported across Greece for 11 days before being delivered to organizers in Paris on 26 April. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Laure Manadou has been chosen as the first French torchbearer for the journey of the Olympic torch to Paris 2024. The torch was lit today in Olympia starting a 5,000km journey across Greece over eleven days. She will travel from the island of Corfu, in the Ionian Sea, to Santorini, in the Cyclades, via Kastellorizo, in the south-east of the country. He will also spend a night near the Parthenon, on the rock of the Acropolis. On April 26, the flame will be delivered to the French organizers in the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, where the first Olympic Games of the modern era took place in 1896. She will then embark for France aboard the three-masted Belem and arrive in Marseille on 8 May.

Swimmer Manaudou, winner of her first Olympic title in 2004 at the Athens Games, will succeed Stefanos Ntouskos, Olympic rowing champion, gold at Tokyo 2020, and will thus become the first French torch bearer to carry the flame, as announced by the Greek Olympic Committee . The lighting of the Olympic flame is a symbolic moment that has been a tradition of the Olympic Games since 1936. The flame not only represents the positive values ​​that man has always associated with the symbolism of fire, such as peace and friendship, but it acts also as a link between the ancient and modern Games.