Soprano, Jean-Pierre Papin and Tony Parker will carry the flame to Marseille – Libération

Football will be in the spotlight to carry the Olympic flame to Marseille. Valentin Rongier, current captain of OM, Didier Drogba, legend of the Marseille club, but also Louisa Necib, will take turns in the Marseille city on Thursday May 9.

The cast is expanding. Ex-footballer Jean-Pierre Papin, legend of Olympique de Marseille, ex-basketball player Tony Parker, but also rapper Soprano will be part of the hundred or so bearers of the Olympic flame in Marseille on Thursday, May 9, first stage of the relay which will take it to Paris for the opening of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 26.

On Wednesday May 8, the flame will arrive in France’s second city after 12 days of crossing the Mediterranean aboard the three-masted Belem. Swimmer Florent Manaudou will be the first bearer of the flame 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 will be, with Paris, 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 end in front of the Stade Vélodrome.

The names of several torchbearers have been revealed by the relay organizers. Football is in the spotlight in the Marseille city with Valentin Rongier, current captain of OM, Didier Drogba, another legend of the Marseille club, but also Louisa Necib, Marseillaise and former number ten of the French women’s football team . Former swimmers Fabien Gilot and Frédérick Bousquet will also be there, as will 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,” said this woman whose daughter Carla-Marie was killed by a tumor at the age of nine. “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 based near Marseille, the flame also symbolizes these children who died too early, but “who continue to light up the lives of their parents”.