100 days on the road to the Paris Olympics

One hundred days before the opening ceremony, the torch relay for the Paris 2024 Olympics set off on Tuesday from Olympia, Greece, the birthplace of the ancient Games, after the flame was lit in a ritual inspired by antiquity and marked by messages of hope amid multiple global crises.

Owing to cloudy weather, actresses in the role of ancient priestesses used a flame lit earlier in a rehearsal at the 2,600-year-old Temple of Hera, near the stadium where the Olympics were born in 776 BC.

Greek actress Mary Mina lit the torch from a pot containing the flame for the first bearer, 2020 Olympic rowing champion Stefanos Ntouskos. Retired swimmer Laure Manaudou, who won a gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, followed as France’s first torch-bearer in Olympia.

The flame will travel across Greece before a handover to France at the Panatheniac Stadium in Athens on April 26, the main venue for the first modern Games in 1896. It will be transported to France aboard the three-masted barque Belem, which was built in 1896, and is due to arrive in the southern city of Marseille on May 8.

Ten thousand torch-bearers will then undertake a relay across France and its overseas territories, culminating in the lighting of the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony on July 26. Organisers have devised a celebration that breaks with the tradition of the Games opening in the main stadium. Instead, as many as 10,000 athletes will sail along a 6km stretch of the River Seine in some 160 barges, before the ceremony at the Trocadero in central Paris.

Iconic or historic venues are at the heart of the Paris Games. Athletes will race on the new purple track at the Stade de France and tennis players will vie for medals on the clay of Roland Garros. Equestrian events will take place at the Palace of Versailles, while skaters, breakdancers and BMX riders will compete at the Place de la Concorde, where France’s last king and queen were beheaded.

Photographers from Agence France-Presse, Associated

Press, Reuters and Xinhua help set the scene for the event.

From top: A countdown clock in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in the French capital announces 100 days until the opening ceremony; a Paris 2024 gold medal on display at Chaumet, a luxury jeweller in the heart of the city; and a close-up of an Olympic torch during the lighting ceremony in Olympia. Below: Tourists stand on the steps of the Sacre-Coeur Basilica that have been painted with a special design for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Inset: The Games’ mascots, The Phryges, are based on the Phrygian caps worn by French revolutionaries.

Main image: Mary Mina holds the torch as it is lit in Olympia, from where it will be taken to Paris. Clockwise from top right: the Olympic Stadium, currently known as Stade de France, in Saint-Denis, north of Paris; the Olympic Aquatic Centre, also in Saint-Denis; the Parc des Princes stadium, where football matches will be held; spectator stands under construction on the Champ-de-Mars, near the Eiffel Tower; the purple athletics track being installed at the Olympic Stadium; sculptures based on the Venus de Milo and celebrating different athletic disciplines on the steps of the French National Assembly; the Grand Palais, where fencing and taekwondo will take place; an aerial view of the stands at the Champ-de-Mars; and visitors in the grounds of the Palace of Versailles, where equestrian events will be held.