Paris Olympics: The torch relay is a not-so-old tradition

 

After arriving off the coast of Marseille on Wednesday aboard the ship Belém, the Olympic flame began its long relay journey across France. A tradition linked to rituals dating back nearly 3,000 years, but this tradition is relatively recent and was not present at the first modern Olympic Games.

The torch was first lit at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. The idea of the torch was then incorporated into the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Since 1964, the flame has been lit in Olympia, Greece, where the ancient Olympic Games were held 2,800 years ago, and carried to the host city.

This tradition is inspired by an ancient ritual: in Olympia, a torch was lit by the rays of the sun on the altar of the goddess Hestia. This fire was used to light other fires in the temple.

Today, actresses dressed as Greek priestesses repeat this ritual. The flaming torch is then passed around the world, with each country building its own model, until it reaches the host city.

To reach Berlin in 1936, London in 1948 and Moscow in 1980, the torch was carried on foot, but planes, sailboats and even camels have also been used.

In 1952, when Helsinki hosted the Games, the torch made its first flight in an airplane. In 1994, the Norwegians carried it via ski jumper Stein Gruben.

In 1968, the torch reached the shores of Mexico in the hands of swimmers, paddlers and canoeists. Over the years, we have seen the torch atop Mount Everest, on a steamboat down the Mississippi River, and on horseback along the Pony Express route. Also in canoes with Native Americans, and even on the Space Shuttle Columbia before returning to space with astronaut Ross. The Australians, in turn, buried the torch underwater along the Great Barrier Reef in 2000.

In 1948, after the end of World War II, Greek soldier Konstantinos Dimitrilis took off his military uniform, laid down his weapon and ran with the torch in a sports uniform.

But the last person to carry the torch is symbolically the strongest. In 1992, Spanish Paralympic archer Antonio Rebollo shot his flaming arrow into the darkness of the Olympic cauldron in Barcelona.

Or in 1996, when Muhammad Ali, the legendary boxing champion and one of the leading figures in the struggle for the rights of black American athletes, lit the cauldron in Atlanta, the city of the humanitarian and political activist Martin Luther King.

Four years later, Australian Cathy Freeman, a symbol of Aboriginal identity, lit the cauldron in front of a waterfall in Sydney.

After being lit in Olympia on April 16 last year, the Olympic flame crossed the Peloponnesus peninsula in southern Greece, illuminating the Acropolis plateau and the Temple of Delphi, as well as Meteora, one of the largest and most important groups of Greek monasteries. She visited the islands of Kastellorizo, Crete and Santorini... before arriving in France on the 27th of the same month aboard the three-mast ship Belém, arriving at the coast of Marseille on the 8th of May.

It will begin its long journey in France before being installed in the Jardin des Tuileries in front of the Louvre. Florent Manaudou, winner of four gold medals and the 2012 50m freestyle world champion, was the first to carry the torch on French soil. But who will be the last to carry it? Who will light the cauldron? The organizers do not want to reveal the name.