Paris. The Olympic torch relay, which started in Marseille in early Could, has been overshadowed by political upheaval in France. The go to to Paris on Sunday and Monday might serve to revive Olympic enthusiasm within the metropolis.
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The flame’s path was additionally designed in order that the fireplace lit in Olympia (Greece) could be within the host metropolis of the Video games on July 14, the French nationwide vacation.
This two-day tour will probably be a style of Parisians earlier than the flames lastly end their relay on 26 July, the day of the Olympic opening ceremony, and proceed to mild up the cauldron situated within the Tuileries Gardens, a stone’s throw from the Louvre Museum.
Throughout its route on Sunday and Monday, the relay will move by among the metropolis’s most emblematic monuments: the Pantheon, Notre-Dame, Place de la Bastille, the Pompidou Museum, the Sacré-Cœur, and the Arc de Triomphe.
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There will probably be 540 relay runners in whole, every taking 200-metre sections, to current to the residents of Paris and guests the fireplace that symbolises the Olympic Video games.
The change of command is accompanied by different festive occasions, with concert events, choirs and varied actions.
Among the many runners-up there will probably be unknown residents but in addition quite a few personalities, from the world of sport and tradition.
Thierry Henry, first reliever
The flame will start its journey on Sunday through the army parade on July 14, escorted by horsemen and by Thibaut Vallette, Olympic champion in equestrianism in Rio 2016.
It was then Thierry Henry, coach of the French males’s Olympic soccer crew, who was accountable for getting her off the Champs-Élysées.
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The tour will start from the Nationwide Meeting to Notre Dame Cathedral, passing by the Senate and Sorbonne College, earlier than heading north after which again to the town centre.
On the finish of the day, the flame will attain the Hôtel de Ville, the town’s city corridor, earlier than the standard July 14 fireworks show on the Eiffel Tower.
The Champ de Mars won’t be accessible to the general public this yr to observe the fireworks as a result of it’s the web site of the Video games’ competitors venues. The Paris mayor’s workplace has insisted in current days that the spectacle will solely be seen from a distance or on tv.
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The flame will sleep in a single day from Sunday to Monday within the gilded halls of the Hôtel de Ville and on Monday it would make one other tour of Paris.
Throughout this journey, the baton will move via the Montmartre district, for instance. After the Sacré-Cœur, the baton will go all the way down to the Moulin Rouge, the place the dancers will greet it with their French Cancan.
Neglect the political scenario
Since its arrival in Marseille on 8 Could, the Olympic flame has been an enormous widespread success in France, attracting some 5 million spectators alongside its journey.
Nonetheless, the dissolution of the Nationwide Meeting on 9 June “made the Olympic Video games disappear from the French current day”, estimates David Roizen, an knowledgeable on the Olympic Video games for the Jean Jaurès Basis.
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France was within the midst of legislative elections, with a primary spherical on June 30 and a second on July 7.
A number of consultants consider that the Olympic Video games might function an escape for the French from the present political scenario.
“For a lot of French people who find themselves anxious, or who’ve been anxious, the Video games symbolize a sort of pause, a second of leisure, earlier than severe issues return to the fore,” says Paul Dietschy, a sports activities historian on the College of Franche-Comté.
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– 2024-07-21 00:48:35
