The former footballer Jean-Pierre Papin, legend of the Olympique de Marseille, the former basketball player Tony Parker and the rapper Soprano will be part of the hundred bearers of the Olympic flame in Marseille on Thursday, May 9, the first stage of the relay which will take it to Paris for the opening of the 2024 Olympics on July 26.
On Wednesday May 8, the flame will arrive in France’s second city after twelve days of crossing the Mediterranean aboard the three-masted Belem. Swimmer Florent Manaudou will be the first bearer on French soil. The Olympic Cauldron will be lit around 7:45 p.m.
Then, on May 9, the flame will travel through Marseille, which, along with Paris, will be the only French city to be crossed for an entire day. The relay will take place over eight segments via several emblematic places in the city. It will start at the Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde basilica, which overlooks the Mediterranean, and will end in front of the Stade-Vélodrome.
The names of several torchbearers have been revealed by the relay organizers. Valentin Rongier, current captain of Olympique de Marseille, and Didier Drogba, another legend of the Marseille club, will be among the pallbearers, as will Louisa Necib, Marseillaise and former number 10 of the French football team, former swimmers Fabien Gilot and Frédérick Bousquet, the three-star chef Alexandre Mazzia…
In addition to renowned athletes and artists, committed citizens will also carry the Olympic flame, such as Nathalie Paoli, co-founder of the Le Point Rose association, which supports parents who have lost a child so that they can regain resilience and joy of living .
“When you lose a child, something goes out, the vital flame flickers in the parents,” this woman told AFP, whose daughter Carla-Marie was killed by a tumor at the age of 9 years. “But the challenge for parents who have experienced such misfortune is to keep this vital flame within them, so it’s really very symbolic to be a bearer of the Olympic flame,” she added. . For the one who accompanied hundreds of grieving parents through Point Rose, an association located near Marseille, the flame also symbolizes these children who died too soon but “who continue to light up the lives of their parents”.
