2024 Paralympic Games: 4 days, 12 flames, 1000 carriers… Everything you need to know about the torch relay

“On the evening of August 11, 2024, when the lights go out at the competition venues of the Olympic Games, it will not be the end of the Games. Because on August 28, the return match of the Paris 2024 Games will begin, with the Paralympic Games. And it’s going to be crazy! Because the return of the Games will also be the return of the Flame,” announces Tony Estanguet, president of the Organizing Committee for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Lit in mid-August in Stoke Mandeville (around fifty kilometers from London), stronghold of the first Paralympic Games in 1960, where it will remain for a few days, the flame will make its journey between August 25 and 28 (date of the ceremony). opening, place de la Concorde). There will be no relay section in England. Transferred by car to the Channel Tunnel, then carried by 24 British torchbearers, the Paralympic Games flame will be transmitted under the tunnel to 24 French torchbearers. Grégory Murac, deputy director of the torch relay, explains: “The moment they emerge from the tunnel, in Calais, the flame will be sent, digitally, to eleven other towns around France.”

Valenciennes, Amnéville, Strasbourg, Thonon-les-Bains, Antibes-Juan-les-Pins, Montpellier, Lourdes, La Roche-sur-Yon, Lorient, Saint-Malo and Rouen will then be lit and frame a celebration site and relay. On August 26, the convergence of the flames towards Paris (via Lyon or Limoges) will be launched. On August 27, the flames will light the departments of Ile-de-France. A route which will celebrate national history and heritage (La Roche-sur-Yon, Arras), will pass through cities involved in sport and the Games (Chambly or Deauville), will highlight “territories which are committed to daily for sports practice and for inclusion,” underlines Delphine Moulin, director of the Paris 2024 celebrations, citing Lorient, Blois, Châlons-en-Champagne, Vichy, Chartres and Troyes. Before August 28, to converge on relay points in Paris in preparation for the opening ceremony.

Around 1000 porters, people with disabilities and able-bodied people (800 individuals and 200 as part of collective relays) will parade. On the same principle as that used for the Olympic torch relay: 200 meters and 4 minutes. Dressed in the same outfit designed by Décathlon. White, unmarked, just wearing orange bands on the sleeves to recall the dates of the events (July 26-August 11 for the Olympic Games; August 28-September 8 for the Paralympic Games). Torchbearers carrying the same torch as that of the Olympic Games designed by Mathieu Lehanneur.

The Flame bearers will have as ambassadors Mona Francis (European Para triathlon champion), Laure and Florent Manaudou (Olympic swimming champions) and Dimitri Pavadé (silver medalist at the Tokyo Paralympic Games in long jump) during the 'a celebration at a cost covered by the organizing committee: "There will be no cost paid by the local authorities but there are specifications with requests to the cities (barriers, access to water, electricity, etc.) )”, specifies Grégory Murac.

During the four days of the Paralympic Games torch relay, there will be, as with the journey of the Olympic flame, a lighting of the cauldron by the last torchbearer of the day. The cauldron will remain lit for twenty or thirty minutes, then the flame will be extinguished. Before resuming his journey the next day…

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