As highly anticipated key events of the Games, the Olympic Torch Relay and the Paralympic Torch Relay are unique features that set the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games apart from any other sports event in the world.

Organised with the support of its Official Sponsors, Coca-Cola, les Banques Populaires and les Caisses d’Épargne, the Paris 2024 Torch Relays will be the “Relais des Eclaireurs” [the Forerunners’ Relays]. These Forerunners are people who live and breathe sport daily, people who have invested in the Olympic Games Paris 2024, and people who are eager to welcome and experience the Games.

The Forerunners will officially launch the Games’ celebrations. The arrival of the Olympic Flame in Marseille aboard the three-masted Belem, on 8 May 2024, will mark the start of a two-month continuous festival throughout France, which will continue during the period of the Games and then to the Paralympic Torch Relay, to be held ahead of the Opening Ceremony on 28 August.

The Forerunners will shine a light on the beauty and diversity of the French regions on the route and will highlight the role of sport and those who participate in it throughout France. 

Finally, the Relays will feature great and small human stories: the meeting of all those who will come together to watch the Flame go by, and the stories of the 11,000 Forerunners, both famous and unknown, who will have the honour of carrying the Torch.

A total of some 11,000 people will have the unique experience of carrying the Torch: 10,000 for the Olympic Torch Relay and 1,000 for the Paralympic Torch Relay.

Whether selected by a jury, sponsored, or an different means, all the Torchbearers will have one thing in common – to have been selected for their inspirational life story corresponding to at least one of the three “energies” of the Paris 2024 Torch Relay:

  • The energy of sport, which will be at the heart of the identity of the Relays. Future Torchbearers could be athletes or volunteers from clubs, amateur sports people, those involved in the Games, etc.  
  • The energy of the regions: Entrepreneurs, innovators and those who create and represent French excellence in all sectors of activity.
  • The energy of the community:  Those who are committed every day to building a society that is more unified, more inclusive, more sustainable and fairer.

Four elite athletes will act as “Super Ambassadors” to push the energy of sport through these Relays and to open the way for the celebrations. They are Laure Manaudou (Olympic swimming champion), Florent Manaudou (Olympic swimming champion), Mona Francis (European Para triathlon champion) and Dimitri Pavadé (Tokyo Paralympic long jump silver medallist).  

Among the 11,000 Torchbearers, some 3,000 will participate in community team Relays, organised on a scale never seen for the Games.

More than half of them will be organised by the French sports movement. With support from the CNOSF and the CPSF, the 34 Olympic and Paralympic Federations with sports on the Games programme, and the Tahiti Surfing Federation, will organise a total of 69 team Relays, featuring athletes practising their disciplines. The aim is to highlight the sports movement as a whole and to bring to life the values of sharing, which are at the heart of sport.

To identify the Torchbearers, in every corner of France, Paris 2024 will mobilise all those involved in its ecosystem, using their ability to engage and their territorial anchoring: the Official Sponsors of the Torch Relay, partner companies, the sports movement, the Games stakeholders, and the territories covered by the Relay will also contribute to this selection. The selection processes will be specified in the course of time, ahead of their campaigns.

For those extra-motivated people who can’t wait, the selection process will start on 1 June! The members of the Paris 2024 Club will be able to nominate a peer who complies with the selection criteria. Five hundred of them will be lucky enough to carry the precious Torch. Go to https://www.paris2024.org/fr/porteurs-Flamme/ as from 1 June 2023 to find out more. The Torchbearer selection process will continue through to the start of 2024, when the names of the lucky people chosen will be announced.

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