Paris 2024 Olympic Games: Florent Manaudou first bearer of the flame in France

On the occasion of the Olympic flame handover ceremony, this Friday at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, Tony Estanguet, president of the Organizing Committee for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, revealed the name of the athlete who will be the first bearer of the torch on French soil, upon his arrival in Marseille on May 8.

It will be swimmer Florent Manaudou, gold medalist at the London Olympics in 2012 in the 50m freestyle. He also won three silver medals (two in Rio in 2016, one in Tokyo in 2020). An almost symbolic choice knowing that the first bearer of the French flame in Olympia on Tuesday April 16 was... Laure Manaudou. From Olympia to Marseille, there will therefore be a hyphen “Manaudou”.

“I am very happy to be the first Torch Bearer in France. Carrying the Flame after my sister, who already had this honor in Olympia in Greece, and doing it in a city to which I am very attached, Marseille, has an even stronger meaning for me, reacted Florent Manaudou, via a press release from Paris 2024. I can't wait to be in the Old Port and celebrate, with the public, the return of the Games to France, a hundred years later!

An announcement which puts an end to the rumors mentioning Zinédine Zidane as the first bearer of the flame on French soil, in “his” city of Marseille. Which does not mean that the former number 10 of the France team will not carry the torch, at one time or another. Perhaps another rumor will even amplify following this declaration from Tony Estanguet, namely that Zidane could very well be the last bearer of the flame, the one who will light the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony on July 26th.