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ANCIENT OLYMPIA, Greece (AP) — Fire burned in Ancient Olympia, Greece, even without the help of Apollo. Paris Olympics It was lit Tuesday at the ancient games site in southern Greece.
cloudy sky prevented traditional lightingAn actress dressed as an ancient Greek priestess lit a silver torch with the sun after performing a symbolic prayer to the ancient Greek sun god Apollo.
Instead, she used a backup flame that was lit in the same spot during Monday’s final rehearsal.
Actress Marie Mina (right), who plays the priestess, lights the torch during the official lighting ceremony of the Paris Olympic flame at the ruins of ancient Olympia, Greece, on Tuesday, April 16, 2024.
Usually, the person who walks at the front of a group Priestess in long pleated skirt Dip a fuel-filled torch into a parabolic mirror, focus the sun’s rays on it, and a flame will burst out.
But this time she didn’t even try, going straight to the backup flame, which was preserved in a replica of an ancient Greek cauldron. Ironically, the sun came out a few minutes later.
Torchbearers will start from Olympia’s ancient stadium and carry the flame along a 5,000-kilometer (3,100-mile) route through Greece, including several islands, until it is handed over to Paris Olympic organizers in Athens on April 26.
IOC President Thomas Bach said lighting the flame combined “a pilgrimage to our past in ancient Olympia and an act of faith in our future”.
After the official torch lighting ceremony, the first torchbearer and Greek Olympic gold medalist Stefanos Duskos (right) passes the torch to the first French torchbearer and three-time Olympic medalist Raul Laure Manaudou, who is seen near the Pierre de Coubertin monument in the background, on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, during the Paris Olympic Games at the ruins of ancient Olympia, Greece. Thanassis Stavrakis)
“In these difficult times… with wars and conflicts increasing, people are tired of all the hate, aggression and negative news,” he said. “We long for something that brings us together; something that unifies; something that gives us hope.
Thousands of spectators from around the world packed Olympia for Tuesday’s games, surrounded by destroyed temples and stadiums where the ancient Olympic Games were held from 776 B.C. to 393 A.D.
This vast site, set in a lush valley at the confluence of two rivers, is at its most beautiful in spring, filled with pink-flowering Judas trees, tiny blue irises and the occasional red anemone.
Performers attend the Paris Olympic flame lighting ceremony at the ruins of ancient Olympia in Greece on Tuesday, April 16, 2024.
Greek authorities maintained a high alert around Olympia on Tuesday after activist protests disrupted lighting ceremonies for the Summer and Winter Olympics in Beijing. Armed police stopped incoming vehicles and checked for explosives, while sniffer dogs scoured the ground.
The first torchbearer is Greek rower Stefanos Douskos, a gold medalist at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.He ran to a nearby monument with a heart inside Baron Pierre de Coubertin, Francethe driving force behind the revival of modern sports.
The next competitor is French swimmer Laure Manaudou, who won three medals at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Margaritis Schinas.
IOC President Bach praises Paris organizers for ‘excellent’ job Preparation Competitions from July 26th to August 11th.
He also highlighted their impact on the environment, saying cleanup It will allow people to swim in the Seine River that cuts through Paris “for the first time in a hundred years.”
IOC politics also made a brief appearance at Olympia, with the heads of two sports federations criticizing track and field leader Sebastian Coe for breaking with Olympic tradition last week. Promising bonus The Paris Olympics gives each gold medal winner $50,000. The money will be paid out of the IOC’s share of Olympic revenue paid to Olympic sports’ governing bodies.
International Cycling Union president David Lappartien complained that Coe had not consulted with other sports before announcing the move.
“We do believe that this is not the Olympic spirit,” Lapatien said. “If we focus our money… only on top athletes, only on gold medals, of course athletes around the world will lose a lot of opportunities.”
Coe is widely expected to run for the IOC presidency, which will become vacant in 2025.
From Greece, the Olympic flame will depart from the port of Piraeus in Athens whitea French three-masted sailing ship built in 1896, the year Athens hosted the first modern Olympic Games.
According to Captain Aymeric Guibert, it will arrive on May 8 in the southern French port of Marseille, a city founded by Greek colonists some 2,600 years ago.
Performers attend the Paris Olympic flame lighting ceremony at the ruins of ancient Olympia in Greece on Tuesday, April 16, 2024.
The Belém arrived at Catacolo near Olympia on Monday. Among the onlookers were a small group of enthusiastic tourists from the Brittany region in northwestern France, where the ship’s home port of Nantes is located, waving French and Breton flags.
“We thought this would be a unique opportunity to watch the lighting of the flame at the historic site of Olympia,” said Jean-Michel Pasquet from Lorient, near Nantes. “When we learned that the Belém was going to carry the flame… we said we had to do this.”
But Pasquet said he had to watch the Paris Olympics from home.
“It’s really expensive and unaffordable for us to go to these venues,” he said. “So we’ll be watching them on TV… from our armchairs.”
A performer holds a ceramic jar with a flame during the official lighting ceremony of the Paris Olympic flame at the ruins of ancient Olympia, Greece, Tuesday, April 16, 2024.
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Graham Dunbar of Geneva, Switzerland, and Theodora Tongass of Ancient Olympia also contributed.
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AP Olympics https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
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