in Marseille, the first torchbearers of the Olympic flame had “their hearts beating strongly”

It was her moment, her gold medal. “Being the star, the center of the world, just for 200 meters.” Colette Cataldo warned the organizers: “I’m telling you, I’m going to take it slow.” “Because of your 83 years ?”he was asked. “No, because I want to enjoy.” And here she sets off at a slow stride, the “Good Mother” watching over her back. “Wait. Already finished?”she is surprised when passing the Olympic torch to the third torchbearer. “I could have walked 500 meters more because I felt so good, savor the Marseillaise, mascot of the Vélodrome stadium, where she always sits in the same place, in the middle of her group of Dodgers. Five hundred meters, even a kilometer.”

After docking the Belem, Wednesday evening, here is the start of serious things for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games: the Olympic torch began, Thursday May 9, its XXL 72-day tour of France to Paris. Marseille, first of 65 stopover towns; Les Bouches-du-Rhône, first of the 54 metropolitan departments in which it will pass.

All day long, some 200 hand-picked people passed on this coveted 70 cm object from hand to hand. It was former footballer Basile Boli who got the ball rolling. Thirty-one years after his goal with Olympique de Marseille in the final of the Champions League, here he is again “forever the first”. “When he got closer, he said to me: ‘Hey, I’ll set you on fire, as they say at OM’”, laughs Colette Cataldo. In truth, both of them had to do it three times. to light the torch.

The comedian Redouane Bougheraba, the swimmer Frédérick Bousquet, the rapper Soprano also played at home. Just like footballers Jean-Pierre Papin, Louisa Necib and Valentin Rongier. In the middle of all these Marseillais, Tony Parker tries to go incognito by mentioning the rapper Jul, originally from the Marseille city. “Yeah yeah, I like what he does”confesses the former basketball player, after having also carried the flame.

A few seconds before setting off from the Palais du Pharo, Marseille actress Nicole Ferroni jokes one last time with the city’s mayor, Benoît Payan: “I’m not passing the torch, I’m going to run with it to Joliette!” But bwe take courage to those who dare to sneak away… At the Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde basilica, an activist from the animal rights association Peta, disguised as a parody of the Olympic Phryga, attempted a coup of brilliance to denounce the organization of the Games. She was immediately arrested.

This is because each torchbearer is escorted by men and women in shorts, revolvers hanging from their waists. Lhe “keepers of the flame”, as they are called, were specially trained to secure the event. “We have to watch out for everything, the slightest dog that could cross the road, an individual who wants to do something bad”, sums up one of them, putting on his armband. His identity is hidden. Normally, it is part of the GIGN. “Sure for the moment.” All in position, head to the next stage, Longchamp Park.

“It’s a quiet moment, as we say at home”

Along the route, everywhere on the sidewalks, children are applauding as if it were the passage of the Tour de France peloton. Some arrived two hours before, cooler at the foot of the parasol. Gisèle came to see a neighbor, a torchbearer. But “how to recognize it? With their white outfits, they all look like Eddie Barclay”, she comments. The relay is arriving, precisely. A father plays the soundtrack of Rocky on his phone. Farida throws shade with a blue-white-red flag distributed by the event partners: “I don’t know anyone, but I’m here anyway. It’s a quiet moment, as we say at home. It feels good.”

In the crowd, Nicolas Catterou claps his hands limply. “It could have been me in their place”, he mutters, a little disappointed. The 26-year-old lawyer himself had applied to become a porter. “JI received an email telling me that I was not accepted. Too bad. I will never touch the flame from now on. My story shouldn’t have been strong enough“. At the question “I could make the Games shine because”, he responded by highlighting his passion for badminton.

The Paris 2024 club, which selected the leaders on CV and cover letter, seems to have looked for other profiles. The lucky ones elected to the Marseille relay insisted on the “symbol” and the“honor”. A certain Odile, born in 1956, for example, recounted her daily life as a social action volunteer at the Red Cross, in the northern districts of Marseille. A certain Elias told him about his other country, Lebanon, which “has only known turmoil and wars for about fifty years”. A certain Tim sees in the relay a way of “getting a little closer to a 50-year-old dream”, that of winning an Olympic medal, he who came very close to a professional ski career. Another tells to have “eu the chance to see the Olympic flame pass towards Albertville in 1992″: “I have incredible memories of it. I was in 6th grade at the time and one of our teachers had organized educational work on the values ​​of Olympism.”

“Everyone wanted a photo with me”

Born at the start of the Second World War, Colette Cataldo vibrated with Michel Jazy, silver medalist over 1,500 meters in Rome, in 1960. Then, eight years later, with Colette Besson, Olympic gold medalist in the 400 meters in Mexico. Today, in the streets of his city, “vs“The world was upside down.” “Everyone wanted a photo with me, laughs the lady, unaccustomed to so much attention. The Minister of Sports, photo. The mayor of Marseille, photo. All elected officials, photo.”

Between Borély Park and the Pharo, Benoît was also tackled just before setting off. “A restaurateur came to find me because he wanted a photo with me and with his children! It was crazy, II didn’t expect that.” A way to stretch out these few moments of relative fame “on a route no bigger than the street where we live”locates a torchbearer.

The night from Wednesday to Thursday, however, Colette Cataldo confides that she slept poorly. “Woke up suddenly at three o’clock, impossible to go back to sleep. I was thinking. What if the flame falls? What if the flame doesn’t light? What if the flame goes out? So just now, when I arrived, there you go, I cried, your heart is beating hard.” Moment of emotion, again, when Albert Corrieriformer deportee, almost 102 years old, brandished the torch at Longchamp Park.

The Olympic flame then sped away, still at 4 km/h, towards Avenue du Prado. Before ending his journey in the lair of Olympique de Marseille: the Vélodrome stadium. On Friday, other Colette, Benoît, Dimitri and Elias will be stars for a day, in the Neighboring Var.