Laure Manaudou will be the first French woman to carry the Olympic flame – Libération

The swimmer will be the first French torchbearer of the Olympic flame, Tuesday April 16, after its lighting in the ancient site of Olympia, in Greece. She will take over from Greek rower Stefanos Ntouskos, who will be the very first bearer of the flame.

She had brought gold from Greece, she returned there to look for the Olympic flame. Swimmer Laure Manaudou, Olympic champion in the 400m freestyle in 2004 in Athens, will be the first French torchbearer of the famous torch, after its lighting in the ancient site of Olympia, Tuesday April 16. The champion will take over from Greek rower Stefanos Ntouskos, gold medalist in Tokyo in 2021, who will be the very first bearer of the flame, almost 100 days before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics (July 26 – August 11).

After two editions spoiled by restrictions linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020 and 2021, for the Tokyo and Beijing Olympics, the traditional ceremony in the cradle of the Olympism will regain all its colors. In the sanctuary of Olympia, in front of the 2,600-year-old ruins of the Temple of Hera, the “high priestess” – the Greek actress Mary Mina – dressed in a costume inspired by antiquity, must proceed in the middle of day of lighting the flame in front of some 600 guests, including the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach.

The entire sanctuary of Olympia, ravaged throughout history by earthquakes and floods, was dedicated to Zeus and the Games aimed to pay homage to him. At the site, a chryselephantine statue of the deity, now extinct, was considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The ceremony will take place near the stadium where young athletes from Antiquity competed in their first Games in the 8th century BC. At the time, women were prohibited from participating, and remained so until the abolition of the ancient Games in 393 AD. AD

A plan B to light the flame if the sun is not out

In Olympia, the system for lighting the flame involves the use of the sun and a parabolic cylindrical mirror, a process already known to the ancient Greeks: the rays of the sun which are reflected in the container release intense heat allowing to get a flame. The weather forecast predicts cloudy skies on Tuesday in this western region of the Peloponnese peninsula, but even in the event of changeable skies or, worse, rain, everything is predicted for the fire to arise. In this case, a few days before the official ceremony, a flame is lit according to the traditional method during a rehearsal. This flame is kept in reserve, in a safety lamp.

The flame will then begin a 5,000 km journey across Greece for 11 days, from the island of Corfu, in the Ionian Sea, to that of Santorini in the Cyclades, with its famous postcard setting, via Kastellorizo, in the southeast of the country. She will also climb the Acropolis rock to spend a night near the Parthenon. Then the flame will be transmitted to the French organizers on April 26 in the Panathenaic stadium in Athens, the venue in which the first Olympic Games of the modern era were played in 1896. In Piraeus, the large port south of Athens, the Flamme will then board the three-masted Belem to disembark on May 8 in Marseille, in the south-east of France. The symbol of the Olympic Games will then cross all of France, passing through the Antilles and French Polynesia, to arrive in Paris on the day of the opening ceremony, July 26.