The Olympic cauldron at the Tuileries will take several days to deflate

PARIS 2024 JO – Some members of the political class, such as Anne Hidalgo, dreamed that it would remain in the Tuileries Garden after the Games. But the Olympic cauldron, which has amazed the French throughout the summer, is already starting to be dismantled this Sunday, September 15. The installation’s balloon should, however, take several days to deflate.

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As explained The Parisianworkers were at work this Sunday morning to remove the plates covering the basin nacelle. “It is under this structure that all the impressive machinery necessary for the basin to take flight is hidden – misting center, electrical cabinets, pumps, etc.”details this source.

The flame rose one last time in the Paris sky on Saturday evening, September 14, during the Champions’ Parade. The latter brought together one last time the French athletes of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, for a parade along the Champs-Élysées, alongside volunteers and other members of the organization, in front of 70,000 spectators.

A complicated maneuver

But deflating a huge balloon with 6,000 m2 of helium is no easy feat. It should take the teams no less than 5 days to achieve this. A complex challenge since it is necessary to ensure that this gas is not released into the air, so that it can then be recovered and reused. To do this, the technicians will “recompress” it, using a valve system.

“This is the first time we’ve done it. We’re going to try to recover about 80% of the total volume, even if it’s not easy; there are a number of uncertainties, particularly related to the weather,” said Matthieu Gobbi, co-founder of the Aerophile group, which provided the balloon, Parisian. It highlights a “circular economy approach”.

Will Parisians ever be able to see the basin again? For the moment, the future seems uncertain. The designer of the basin, Mathieu Lehanneur, had confided to the HuffPost early August that he would love for it to become an everyday object, seeing it as a technology of the future, more ecological.

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