Countdown to Paris 2024 Olympics
The Eiffel Tower’s countdown clock to the Paris 2024 Olympics turned to 100 days on Tuesday, April 16, as preparations for the Games entered the final stage.
The Olympic torch was lit in ancient Olympia earlier in the day. It will reach France on May 8 in the port city of Marseille, after a journey on the three-masted Belem ship.
All permanent infrastructures for the Games are now ready, and the building of temporary sites has started in Paris, notably on the Place de la Concorde.
Organizers’ Preparation
- Organizers will count on the flame relay across France for the mood to swing in the country as the July 26-August 11 Games approach.
- Last month, a poll showed that, in France, 57% of people felt little or no enthusiasm for the Paris Games.
- Paris 2024 posters were displayed in metro stations on Tuesday and some landmark monuments paid tribute to the upcoming Games.
Olympic Torch Lighting
In ancient Olympia, Greece, the torch for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games was lit in a traditional ceremony on Tuesday, marking the final stretch of the seven-year preparation for the Games’ start on July 26.
Greek actress Mary Mina, playing the role of high priestess, lit the torch using a backup flame instead of a parabolic mirror that is normally used, due to cloudy skies, for the start of a relay in Greece and France.
It will culminate with the lighting of the Olympic flame in the French capital at the opening ceremony. Paris will host the summer Olympics for a third time after 1900 and 1924.
IOC Decision and Torch Relay
- The IOC has cleared the way for Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete at the Olympics despite the ongoing war in Ukraine but they will do so as neutral athletes with no national flag or anthem.
- Suspending armed conflicts under an Olympic truce during the Games was a standard practice in ancient Greece.
- The high priestess then lit the torch of the first runner of the relay, Greece’s Olympic rowing champion Stefanos Ntouskos.
Paris Games Preparation
- The flame will be officially handed over to Paris Games organizers in Athens’s Panathenaic stadium, site of the first modern Games in 1896, on April 26 after an 11-day relay across Greece.
- The French torch relay will last 68 days and will end in Paris with the lighting of the Olympic flame on July 26.
