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[00:00.41] Olympic Games organizers in France presented the 2024 Olympic torch that will light the Summer Games in the country a year from now.
[00:12.09] In the Olympic torch tradition, many people carry the torch in turn from Greece to the current location of the Games.
[00:21.39] After it has traveled thousands of kilometers, the torch will light the Olympic cauldron at the Opening Ceremony of the next Olympic Games.
[00:32.55] French designer Mathieu Lehanneur created the torch, which is 70 centimeters long and made of lightweight steel.
[00:43.71] Lehanneur said its shape is inspired by the famous Seine river, which flows through Paris.
[00:51.14] He said the torch is equal from top to bottom and all around the middle, which stands for equality between athletes.
[01:02.56] The twisting shape of the torch represents peace.
[01:07.61] The torch was made with lightweight steel.
[01:10.53] Its lower half copies the movement of the Seine, along which the opening ceremony will take place for over 500,000 viewers.
[01:21.69] Lehanneur said he wants the torch to represent the kind of event that Paris 2024 hopes to be.
[01:30.72] “I wanted to move away from the torch appearing as an object of conquest,” Lehanneur said.
[01:37.62] He also told reporters that designing the torch was much more technical than he thought it would be.
[01:45.59] “The magic is not the torch itself, but the flame,” Lehanneur said.
[01:51.44] The torch will begin burning in Olympia, Greece, where the first Olympics were held, on April 16.
[02:01.00] The Games will begin in Paris on July 26, 2024.
[02:08.17] On May 8, the torch will arrive in the Mediterranean city of Marseille.
[02:14.54] It will then pass through several important places, which include Strasbourg, the Pantheon in Paris, the Mont Saint-Michel and multiple French territories.
[02:28.36] Tony Estanguet, the Paris 2024 chief, said the torch is “very, very beautiful.”
[02:37.65] He also said it is “…very pure.
[02:41.11] It’s perfectly balanced in the hand.”
