Colette Cataldo receives the Olympics torch from French former soccer participant Basile Boli throughout the relay forward Paris 2024 Olympic video games in Marseille, France, Might 9, 2024.
| Picture Credit score: REUTERS
Torchbearers are to hold the Olympic flame via the streets of France’ southern port metropolis of Marseille, sooner or later after it arrived on an imposing three-mast ship for the welcoming ceremony.
The torch begins its 11-week journey throughout the nation with about 10,000 bearers passing via greater than 450 cities till the Video games’ opening ceremony in Paris on July 26.
Former soccer participant Basile Boli, who performed with the Marseille group within the Nineties, will launch Thursday’s first relay from Notre Dame de la Garde basilica that overlooks Marseille and the Mediterranean.
Basketball participant Tony Parker was to take his flip within the relay later Thursday. A fencing champion, a skateboarder, a Michelin-starred chef and a comic had been additionally chosen to hold the flame.
Members had been scheduled to run all day via essentially the most emblematic locations of town to deliver the torch on the roof of the famed Stade Velodrome, house to Marseille’s passionate soccer followers.
Town on Wednesday celebrated with nice fanfare the flame’s arrival as Marseille Mayor Benoît Payan stated that greater than 230,000 individuals attended the ceremony within the Previous Port.
“It’s simply unbelievable, simply magical,” resident Amel Sekko stated. “We would have liked it. We by no means have occasions or lovely issues like this in Marseille.”
Mouna Boulhas, one other Marseille resident, stated: “It’s one thing it’s a must to expertise not less than as soon as in your life … We’ve got the solar and the Olympic flame.”
Throughout the Video games, the crusing competitors and a few soccer matches shall be held in Marseille.
