By Sylvia Chebet
After a hundred years of waiting since the 1924 tournament the Olympic torch has arrived in France, host of the 2024 Olympic Games.
The torch for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games was lit in Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, on April 16 marking the final stretch of the seven-year preparations for the Games' start on July 26.
“The Olympic torch is a huge symbol of the Olympic Games,” Martin Keino, a former Olympian and pacesetter who helped break seven athletic world records tells TRT Africa.
“It signifies the beginning of the world’s biggest sporting event, bringing together the best of the best athletes.”
Greek actress Mary Mina, playing the role of high priestess, lit the torch for the first bearer, Greece’s Olympic rowing champion Stefanos Ntouskos using a flame lit in a rehearsal at the 2,600-year-old Temple of Hera.
A parabolic mirror would normally be used, but was rendered impossible due to cloudy skies.
After a short run he then handed the flame on to France's three-time Olympic medallist in swimming and head of Paris' Olympic torch relay, Laure Manaudou, as the representative of the host city.
“What an honour to be the first French Torchbearer,” Laure Manaudou said.
“This is even more special for me as I have a strong connection with this country where my sporting career took a decisive turn. Carrying the flame on the soil of Olympia, the ancient origin of the Games, brings back many memories and emotions. I am very proud to have represented France at this flame lighting ceremony that marks the start of the countdown to the Games,” she added.
After an 11-day relay across Greece, the flame was handed over to Paris Games organisers in Athens's Panathenaic stadium, site of the first modern Games in 1896.
It then crossed the Mediterranean on board a three-masted ship, the ‘Belem’ arriving on the French soil in Marsaille on May 8.
The flame is scheduled to travel across France for 68 days, culminating with the lighting of the Olympic flame at the Games' opening ceremony on July 26.
The torch harks back to the ancient Olympics when a sacred flame burned throughout the Games, a tradition that was later revived in 1936 for the Berlin Olympics.
Since then, famous athletes (active or retired) with significant sporting achievements have been selected as the last runners in the Olympic torch relay and consequently have the honor of lighting the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony.
This year, 11,000 torchbearers are taking part in the relay from Greece to France.
Keino recalls the ecstatic experience he had back in 2008 as an Olympian attending the Beijing Olympics.
Witnessing the baton going around and the lighting the Olympic flame was a moment to behold. “It was truly amazing, memorable to this day,” he says.
Even more incredible is the chance to be a torchbearer - an experience his father, Kipchoge Keino savoured.
“He was honored in the Rio 2016 Olympics and he was the first one certainly from Kenya and Africa to hold it and to be honored at the start of the Olympic games.”
The senior Keino, a legendary figure in Kenya’s sporting arena, set the standard for the country with remarkable athletic talent with his historic Olympic gold in 1968.
“It was a big deal, a big honor for him to be recognized in that way.”
The significance of the Olympic flame however transcends the enigmatic extravaganza inside the stadium where it is lit.
Speaking during the handover ceremony, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach stated that the flame is a symbol of hope in a world filled with despair.
"In these difficult times we are living through, with wars and conflicts on the rise, people are fed up with all the hate, the aggression and negative news they are facing day in and day out," Bach said in his speech.
"We are longing for something which brings us together, something that is unifying, something that gives us hope. The Olympic flame that we are lighting today is the symbol of this hope."
The Olympic Games, Bach stated, “are the only event that brings the entire world together in peaceful competition,” he said adding: “It is possible to compete fiercely against each other and at the same time live peacefully together under one roof."
