Athens. The Olympic flame from Paris set sail for France on Saturday, aboard a three-masted ship for the final leg before the opening ceremony of the Games on July 26.
He White It set sail in the morning from the port of Piraeus for an 11-day voyage and will arrive on May 8 in the city of Marseille, founded by the Greek settlers from Phocaea around the year 600 BC.
The organizers of the Paris Games had received the flame on Friday in a ceremony at the Panathenaic stadium in Athens, site of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, after the lighting last week in ancient Olympia that began a stage of 11-day relays in Greece.
Some 150,000 spectators are expected to attend the ceremony in Marseille’s Old Port, which will host the sailing competitions and will be the start of a 68-day French torch relay across the country.
The last torchbearer in Marseille will climb to the roof of the Velodrome stadium on May 9. The relay will end in Paris on July 26 with the lighting of the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony of the Games on the banks of the Seine River.
Organizers hope that the opening ceremony, in which 160 boats with athletes from around the world will travel a six-kilometer journey to the Eiffel Tower, will offer an astonishing spectacle.
Some 300,000 spectators will watch the ceremony from the banks of the Eiffel Tower. The country’s security forces are on high alert as the Games take place against the backdrop of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
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– 2024-05-03 02:59:29
