Olympic flame to take seaborne journey to 2024 Paris Games

The Olympic flame goes for a sail. Instead of arriving overland, the symbolic flame alighting the 2024 Paris Games will take to the seas from its birthplace in Greece, arriving aboard a three-mast tall ship within the French port of Marseille.

Paris organizers introduced the flame’s journey on Friday at City Hall in Marseille, a former Greek colony based 2,600 years in the past. According to custom, the flame can be lit by the solar’s rays at a ceremony in Ancient Olympia. Then it will likely be carried by the Olympic torch to Athens and throughout the Mediterranean to the famed Old Port of Marseille, the place the flame can be greeted by an armada of boats alongside the French shoreline, organizers stated.

It will journey to the Marseille marina — the place Olympic crusing competitions can be primarily based — and the Marseille stadium internet hosting Olympic soccer video games.

After that it will likely be carried overland within the conventional torch relay, earlier than arriving in Paris to mild the cauldron and formally open the 2024 Games, which run from July 26-Aug. 11. The Paris Paralympics comply with from Aug. 28-Sept. 8.

Friday’s announcement got here as the final meeting of Ukraine’s National Olympic Committee met in Kyiv to debate a attainable boycott of Paris 2024 if Russian athletes are allowed to compete.

The International Olympic Committee final week sought to chart a path for athletes from Russia and Belarus who haven’t actively supported the struggle in Ukraine to hitch the Paris Olympics. That provoked sturdy objections from Ukraine, which needs these international locations banned from most worldwide sports activities.

Asked by the Associated Press in regards to the difficulty, Paris 2024 organizing committee president Tony Estanguet declined to delve into what he stated was a political resolution.

“My job is to make sure that all athletes who want to participate will be offered the best conditions in terms of security, to offer them the chance to live their dream,” he stated.