The first cauldron of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games was lit on Wednesday in Marseille by Jul, French rap star, in front of a crowd gathered in the Old Port. A choice which created surprise, but also the start of controversy: should we choose an athlete rather than an artist to ignite the cauldron?
The Olympic champion swimmer (4x100m freestyle in London in 2012), Fabien Gilot (40 years old), who carried the torch in the morning in the streets of the Phocaean City, was not shocked by this choice. “He is someone who embodies Marseille and who has enormous resonance, especially when we see that he sold his concert tickets in 10 minutes for the Stade de France and the Vélodrome, indicated the Frenchman in the show “L’Équipe de choc”, before qualifying his remarks. That he carries the flame, I find that completely normal. Whether we like him or not is a whole other debate, but I would have chosen a sportsman for the cauldron. »
Asked about the personality he would have chosen for this role, Gilot indicated that he would have chosen “a Marseille icon like Basile Boli”who scored the winning goal for OM against AC Milan in the 1993 Champions League final (1-0).
