Ame-lighting ceremony

The traditional practice stands as a link between modern and ancient Greece from which it was originally modelled, the ame for Paris 2024 is set for a similar journey

priestess prays to a dead sun god in front of a fallen Greek temple. If the sky is clear, a ame spurts that will burn in Paris throughout the world’s top sporting event. Speeches ensue.

On Tuesday, the ame for this summer’s Paris Olympics was lit at the birthplace of the ancient Olympic Games in southern Greece in a meticulously choreographed ceremony.

It will then be carried through Greece for more than 5,000 kilometres (3,100 miles) before being handed over to French organisers at the Athens venue used for the „rst modern Olympics in 1896.

Here’s a look at the workings and meaning of the elaborate ceremony

Aheld among the ruins of Ancient Olympia ahead of each modern Olympiad.

The pageantry at Olympia has been an essential part of every Olympics for nearly 90 years since the Games in Berlin. It’s meant to provide an ineluctable link between the modern event and the ancient Greek original on which it was initially modelled.

Once it’s been carried by any means imaginable to the host city — it’s been beamed down by satellite, lugged up Mount Everest and towed underwater — the ame kindles a cauldron that burns in the host Olympic stadium until the end of the games. Then it’s used for the Paralympics.

The ame is eventually used to light the „rst runner’s torch — and a long relay through Greece leads to the April 26 handover at the Panathenaic stadium in Athens.

Flames and sandals make for an impressive spectacle, and while the priestess’ largely tonguein-cheek prayer to Apollo might not be answered, the parabolic mirror works well.

The idea was the result of Greek-German cooperation ahead of the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany, which were heavy on fanfare — and swastikas.

It was based on a mechanism mentioned by ancient writers in a nonOlympic context, and served the desire to blend the games of antiquity with the modern revival.

The 1936 innovations included a torch relay all the way to Berlin, and have been followed, with modi„cations, ever since.

According to ancient Greek tradition, the games of antiquity, held every four years in honour of Zeus, started in 776 B.C. They were the most important of the major Greek sporting festivals, where events included running, wrestling and horse racing. Up to 40,000 spectators could attend.

Rain. Heavy cloud cover. Then the mirror wouldn’t work. Ceremony organisers in Olympia hold several rehearsals in the days leading up to the oœcial lighting, which provide a backup ame should the big day prove sunless. And it did on Tuesday.

The ame-lighting, with its broad TV coverage — although the oœcial stream shies from showing any form of protest — is a magnet for activists who want to grab headlines.

And even if ancient Olympia can, in theory at least, be eœciently guarded, the route of the torch relay through Greece is too long to be protest-proof.

The 2008 incidents at Olympia and abroad led to the scrapping of torch relays outside Greece and the host country.