ANCIENT OLYMPIA, Greece –
Even without Apollo’s help, the flame that will burn at the Paris Olympics was lit Tuesday at the site of the ancient games in southern Greece.
Cloudy skies prevented traditional lighting, as an actress dressed as an ancient Greek priestess uses the sun to light a silver torch, after offering a symbolic prayer to Apollo, the ancient Greek sun god.
Instead, he used a backup flame that had been lit in the same spot on Monday during the final rehearsal.
Typically, the first of a group of priestesses in long, pleated dresses dips the fuel-filled torch into a parabolic mirror that focuses the sun’s rays on it and fire erupts.
But this time he didn’t even try and went straight for the backup flame, kept in a copy of an ancient Greek pot. Ironically, a few minutes later the sun came out.
From the ancient stadium at Olympia, a relay of torchbearers will carry the flame more than 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) across Greece until it is handed over to Paris Games organizers in Athens on April 26.
Artists participate in the official lighting ceremony of the Paris Olympics flame, at the site of Ancient Olympia, Greece, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said the lighting of the flame combined “a pilgrimage to our past in ancient Olympia and an act of faith in our future.”
“In these difficult times… with wars and conflicts on the rise, people are fed up with all the hate, aggression and negative news,” he said. “We long for something that unites us, something that unifies us, something that gives us hope.”
Thousands of spectators from around the world packed Olympia for Tuesday’s event amid ruined temples and sports fields where the ancient games took place between 776 BC and 776 BC. C. and 393 AD. c.
The sprawling site, in a lush valley at the confluence of two rivers, is at its prettiest in spring, filled with pink-flowered Judas trees, small blue lilies and the occasional red anemone.
Greek authorities maintained high security around Olympia on Tuesday, after protests by human rights activists disrupted the lighting ceremonies for the Beijing summer and winter games. Armed police stopped arriving vehicles and checked for explosives, while sniffer dogs combed the ground.
The first torchbearer was Greek rower Stefanos Douskos, a gold medalist in 2021 in Tokyo. He ran to a nearby monument containing the heart of French baron Pierre de Coubertin, the driving force behind the modern revival of the games.
The next runner was Laure Manaudou, a French swimmer who won three medals in Athens in 2004. She handed the baton to top European Union official Margaritis Schinas, a Greek.
The first torchbearer, Greek Olympic gold medalist Stefanos Douskos, right, passes the flame to the first French torchbearer, three-time Olympic medalist Laure Manaudou, after the official flame lighting ceremony of The Paris Olympic Games, at the site of Ancient Olympia, Greece. , Tuesday, April 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
The IOC’s Bach praised Paris organizers for doing “an exceptional job” in preparing for the July 26-Aug. 11 games.
He also highlighted its environmental impact, stating that cleanup efforts will allow swimming in the Seine River, which runs through Paris, “for the first time in a hundred years.”
The flame will travel from the Athenian port of Piraeus on the Belem, a three-masted French sailing ship built in 1896, the year of the first modern games in Athens.
According to Captain Aymeric Gibet, the planned date will be May 8 in the port of Marseille, in the south of France, a city founded by Greek settlers about 2,600 years ago.
The Belem arrived in Katakolo, near Olympia, on Monday. Among the spectators was a small, enthusiastic group of tourists from the Brittany region of north-west France, where the ship’s home port of Nantes is located, waving French and Breton flags.
“We thought it would be a unique opportunity to see the flame lit at the historic site of Olympia,” said Jean-Michel Pasquet of Lorient, near Nantes. “And when we also knew that Belem would carry the flame… we said we had to do this.”
But Pasquet said he would have to watch the Paris Games from home.
“For us it would be really very expensive, unaffordable” to go to the places, he said. “So we’ll watch them on television… from our couches.”