AFP photo montage
Former basketball player Tony Parker and rapper Soprano will be part of the hundred or so bearers of the Olympic flame in Marseille this Thursday, May 9.
Olympic Games – Lifting the veil on an Olympic casting. Ex-footballer Jean-Pierre Papin, legend of Olympique de Marseille, ex-basketball player Tony Parker and rapper Soprano will be part of the hundred bearers of the Olympic flame in Marseille this Thursday, May 9. This will be the first stage of the relay which will take it to Paris for the opening of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 26.
On Wednesday May 8, the flame will arrive in France’s second city after 12 days of crossing the Mediterranean aboard the three-masted Belem. Swimmer Florent Manaudou will be the first bearer of the flame on French soil. The Olympic cauldron will be lit around 7:45 p.m.
A three-star chef and committed citizens
Then on May 9, the flame will travel through Marseille, which will be with Paris the only French city to be crossed for an entire day. The relay will take place over eight segments via several emblematic places in the city. It will start at the Notre-Dame de la Garde basilica, which overlooks the Mediterranean, and end in front of the Stade Vélodrome.
The names of several torchbearers have been revealed by the relay organizers. This is the case of Jean-Pierre Papin, Ballon d’Or in 1991, and Tony Parker, but also of Valentin Rongier, current captain of OM, or Didier Drogba, another legend of the Marseille club.
Louisa Necib, Marseillaise and former No.10 of the French football team, is also one of the torchbearers, like the rapper Soprano, the former swimmers Fabien Gilot and Frédérick Bousquet or the three-star chef Alexandre Mazzia. Also on this list are TV host Camille Combal, actress and comedian Nicole Ferroni, according to The Parisian.
In addition to renowned athletes and artists, committed citizens will also carry the Olympic flame, such as Nathalie Paoli, co-founder of the Le Point rose association which supports parents who have lost a child so that they can regain resilience and joy of living.
“When we lose a child, something goes out, the vital flame flickers within the parents”told AFP this woman whose daughter Carla-Marie died of a tumor at the age of nine. “But the challenge for parents who have experienced such misfortune is to keep this vital flame within them, so it is really very symbolic to be a bearer of the Olympic flame”she added.
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