Games torch lights up France
Marseille (France), May 10: The Olympic torch relay completed its first day on French soil in Marseille on Thursday with the port city’s football legend Basile Boli taking the flame in front of the iconic basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde before passing it on to a number of other celebrity sports stars on its way to Marseille’s iconic Stade Velodrome.
France’s former NBA great Tony Parker was also among the 200 people who will carry the torch in Marseille along with skier Cyprien Sarrazin who collected the flame from Ukrainian gymnast Mariia Vysochanska.
The 21-year-old from Lviv, whose father is fighting at the front against the Russian invasion, was ‘captain’ for the day of a collective relay of 28 athletes, with one representative from each of the 27 countries of the European Union including Poland’s three-time reigning Olympic hammer champion Anita Wlodarczyk.
The relay “is a way of emphasising our solidarity with Ukraine,” said French sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera.
Former French international Boli, who scored the only goal in Marseille’s victory over AC Milan in the 1993 European Champion Clubs’ Cup final, set off at 8.20 am just beneath the famous golden
statue of the “Good Mother”, which watches over France’s secondlargest city.
“It makes the heart beat and it’s fantastic. It’s the Olympic flame, it’s the symbol of sport, of living together, of everything we can hope for in the world,” said Boli.
There was a strong football element to the first of 78 days of the torch relay with 1991 Ballon d’Or winner Jean-Pierre Papin and Ivory Coast great Didier Drogba also among the torch bearers.
The torch ended its first full day in France in Marseille’s Stade Velodrome, home of Olympique Marseille, which will host 10 matches during the men’s and women’s Olympic football competitions.
Drogba, a Marseille legend, carried the torch and lit the Games’ second cauldron, which is situated on the square outside the Velodrome.
“The start is important in sport. We got off to a good start... now it’s on,” said chief organiser Tony
Estanguet after the beginning of the relay.
These are only the first steps on 12,000-kilometre (7,500-mile) relay across France and its far-flung overseas territories before the opening ceremony in Paris on July 26.
The flame arrived on French soil at Marseille on Wednesday on board the 19th-century sailing ship Belem in front of 150,000 spectators for a ceremony that posed a first major security test for organisers of the 2024 Paris Games. —