Held by a torch maiden who captured the rays of Helios in a special concentric dish, the heat of the Sun ignited the first Olympic torch for the Paris 2024 Games on the 16th of April.
The torch now travels some 12,000 kms across the globe – with a special emphasis upon all of the far-flung French-speaking islands, provinces and territories – after, of course, visiting multiple significant sites across Greece (ie, Delphi, Volos, Thessaloniki, Piraeus, Santorini, and Athens’ iconic Parthenon, where the flame also ignited an Acropolis cauldron) before igniting the ceremonial brazier in Paris.
100 days to go; 100 days to go before the 205 competing nations at these Games seek to reap Olympic glory: the greatest sporting and peace-building institution the world has ever seen will flame into life once again.
Note the new, slightly-contentious outfits of the torch maidens and men at Olympia. And how the French are trying to reduce their environmental footprint with these Games, by reducing the number of Olympic ‘relay’ torches from the usual 8-to-12 thousand to just 700.
