Olympic Games: discover the most memorable moments of the torch relay, a relatively recent ritual

It is an important moment which kicks off the festivities of Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The flame is lit this Tuesday in Olympia before a trip to Greece then to France departing from Marseille. But this ceremony and the relays which pay tribute to the ancient Games are rather very recent and only saw the light of day in the 1920s. A look back at nearly 100 years of history.

Originally Olympia…Amsterdam and Berlin

The flame was lit for the first time on the occasion of the Amsterdam Games in 1928. The relay was then inducted in 1936 for the Berlin Olympics in Nazi Germany. And since 1964, the flame has been lit in Olympia in Greece, where the ancient Olympic Games took place 2,800 years ago.

The ritual is inspired by ancient ceremonies: in Olympia, a flame, lit by the rays of the sun, burned on the altar of the goddess Hestia. This fire was used to light the other fires in the sanctuary. Today, actresses dressed as Greek priestesses repeat these gestures. Then the burning torch – each organizing country creates its own model – is relayed to the host city.

On foot, by sled, by space shuttle

To reach Berlin in 1936, London in 1948 and Moscow in 1980, the kilometers were entirely covered on foot, but generally aircraft, sailboats or even camels help to cover the distance. In 1952 (Helsinki), the flame made its first trip by plane. The Norwegians flew it again in 1994, but this time at the end of the arm of a ski jumper (Stein Gruben).

In 1968, it reached the Mexican coast in the hands of swimmers, rowers and water skiers. Over the years, we will see her at the summit of Everest, she will travel by steamboat on the Mississippi, on horseback on the route of the Pony express (the American postal service), in a canoe with Native Americans, and even in the space shuttle Columbia before returning to space with Russian cosmonauts. Australians dipped the torch underwater along the Great Barrier Reef in 2000. A special 2000 degree flame is ignited, allowing it to stay lit, tells RTBF.

Chaotic routes

In 1956 (Melbourne), a young Australian student, Barry Larkin, fooled everyone by running around with a homemade torch, in which… underwear was burning. More macabre, in Seoul in 1988, newly released doves roasted on the flaming basin.

The events are a classic of the relay which offers gigantic media exposure. They were particularly important in 2008, when anti-Chinese activists – mainly denouncing Beijing’s policy in Tibet – disrupted the course in London, Paris and San Francisco.

Iconic torchbearers

In 1948, at the end of the Second World War, the first porter, soldier Konstantinos Dimitrelis, put down his weapon and took off his uniform before running in athletic attire. But the last torchbearer carries the strongest symbolic charge. As in 1992 when in the dark, Antonio Rebollo, Spanish Paralympic archer, shoots his flaming arrow towards the Olympic cauldron in Barcelona.

Barcelona 1992 Olympic Torch Lighting | Epic Olympic Moments

Or in 1996, when the legendary boxer and great figure of activism among black American athletes, Mohamed Ali, consumed by Parkinson’s disease, set the cauldron ablaze in Atlanta, the city of Martin Luther King. Four years later, Australian Cathy Freeman, symbol of Aboriginal identity, ignited the ground in front of a waterfall in Sydney.

Lighting of the Olympic Flame Atlanta Games 07-19-1996

The long road

In Greece, the flame will cross the Peloponneseilluminate the rock of the Acropolis and the sanctuary of Delphi, Marathon and the Meteora, tour the islands, Kastellorizo, Crete, Santorini,… before being transmitted to France at the Panathenaic stadium in Athens and embark on April 27 aboard the Bélem (58 meters), a 58-meter three-masted ship built in Nantes in 1896.

Arrival on May 8 at Marseille, the flame will begin its long journey in France until its installation in the Tuileries garden, opposite the Louvre pyramid. For 80 days, we will see her on the Normandy landing beaches, at Mont-Saint-Michel, in Chambord, in the Alps, near the most touristy places in Paris, but also at the Bataclan, scene of the jihadist attack of November 13, 2015. During this journey, she will return to a boat, the trimaran Maxi Banque Populaire by Armel Le Cléac’hto show itself in the Antilles, Reunion, Polynesia and New Caledonia.