The last of around 200 bearers of the day was the former Ivorian international Didier Drogba, legend of the Marseille club, who lit the second cauldron of these Games, on the square of the legendary Vélodrome, as the rapper Jul la had done. watches over the Old Port.
Lit at the start of the morning by Basile Boli, another great name in Marseille football, who passed into posterity with his victorious goal in the 1993 Champions League final, the Olympic flame was passed from torchbearer to torchbearer, anonymous or personalities, through the eight sectors of France’s second city.
But the last porters before arriving at the Vélodrome, the lair of the aptly named Olympique de Marseille, were all darlings of the Marseille city: first the rapper Alonzo, then the 1991 Ballon d’Or Jean-Pierre Papin , ex-goleador of OM, or even Louisa Necib, Marseillaise and former N.10 of the French team, who was the first to enter the stadium lawn.
“Very happy, very proud also to have participated, whether yesterday (Editor’s note: Wednesday during his concert in the Old Port, after the arrival of the flame aboard the Belem) or today, at the start of the Olympic Games, in the most beautiful city in France”commented Alonzo after his stint.
Valentin Rongier, current captain of OM, then walked along the empty stands then crossed the field passing through the central circle covered with a flag in the colors of Marseille. Then he went up the aisles of the stands to the roof of the stadium, where the rapper Soprano, another child from the impoverished neighborhoods in the north of the city, was waiting for him.
Very smiling, “Sopra” then carried out an impressive relay on a narrow corridor-staircase, along the undulating design of the roof, before passing the Olympic light to OM midfielder Jenny Perret, 23 years old. And so it was the young woman, after a long journey on the roof, who passed the flame to Eric Di Meco, another 1993 European champion with OM.
Zinedine Zidane, another illustrious Marseillais, whose name had been circulated for the lighting of the cauldron on Wednesday or Thursday, however, never showed up. And so it was Didier Drogba who lit the cauldron to close the day.
