Paris 2024: who are the Olympic flame bearers taking turns in France until July 26?
There will be 10,000 of them, not one more or less. Ten thousand runners – “scouts”, as the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee calls them – who will carry the flame a few hundred meters, under good escort, in a relay broadcast on mondovision, all in postcard landscapes . The Olympic flame landed in Marseille on Wednesday May 8, passing from the hands of Florent Manaudou, to Nantenin Keïta then to the rapper Jul, surprise from the chef to light the Olympic cauldron. The start of a two and a half month journey which will take her to the Tuileries gardens, in Paris, for the lighting of the cauldron at the end of the opening ceremony of the Games on July 26, franceinfo details the casting of the most publicized human chain in France.
Imagine that instead of commenting on the quality of the salmon tagliatelle in your company canteen, you go jogging, Olympic torch in hand, between noon and two. The Paris 2024 club selected, on CV and cover letter, 5,000 lucky people (more than 20,000 applications were sent). The ages of these flame bearers range from 10 to 102 years. The youngest, Tiago Cluber, will be part of the relay in Oise, mid-July, note France Blue. This CM2 student is the winner of the “Generation 2024” program organized by the Ministry of National Education.
Among the elders, Mélanie Berger-Volle, 102 years old, resistance fighter during the Second World War and grandmother of the gymnast Emilie Volle (who participated in the Atlanta Games in 1996) will carry the flame to Saint-Etienne (Loire)while Albert Corrieri, 101 spring, will brandish it from May 9 in Marseille.
If the organizing committee (Cojop) and the sports movement were able to choose 30% of the torch bearers, the partners of the event had a say in selecting 3,000. There are thus 788 bearers retained by Banque Populairewho, again, had to attach a cover letter to their application and “an inspiring life journey”. Five hundred people were also selected by Caisse d’Epargne (out of a total of 55,000 candidates among their clients).
Historical sponsor of the Games, Coca-Cola, for its part, was able to designate 1,000 (out of 15,000 applications). Each time, a significant number of employees from these companies were retained. A little bit less 140 postal workers are also in the casting of the relay. The only restriction imposed by the IOC rules to join the “scout” team: current elected figures and religious figures cannot carry the flame.
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- Source of information and images “francetvinfo“
