Our Olympic Flame file
“If I have a dream, it’s to light the Olympic cauldron! » Marie-José Pérec55, three-time Olympic champion, expressed her desire to be the last bearer of the flame, during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics, Friday July 26. During the various surveys carried out in recent months among French people and sports fans, the name of the greatest French Olympic athlete, crowned in the 400 m in 1992, 200 and 400 m in 1996 (and standard bearer of the team Olympic France in Atlanta), systematically returns to the short list of the last potential torch bearers.
The French also have other candidates in their hearts. Our survey last summer placed in order triple Olympic medalist judoka Teddy Riner, well in the lead (25%)in front Kylian Mbappé (11%), Martin Fourcade (10%), Zinédine Zidane (10%), David Douillet (8%), Marie-José Pérec (8%), Laure Manaudou (7%)…
The flame, lit according to ancient tradition on Tuesday April 16 in Olympia, sails on the Mediterranean to Marseille this Thursday, May 8where she will begin her relay route across France.
“If it’s me, if they choose me, they will offer me the fourth gold medal that I didn’t get in Sydney,” concluded Marie-José Pérec with a big burst of laughter, alluding to his premature departure from the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Pérec does not think he is saying so well about the symbol embodied or carried by the last torchbearer through the ages.
In 1996, the emotion Mohamed Ali
“It was only from the 1936 Berlin Olympics that the Olympic flame and the relay have become two closely linked elements of the protocol, specifies the IOC, in one of its recent official communications. Innovations and symbolism often play an important role in the choice of the final torchbearers ― those whose names will forever be remembered for lighting the cauldron in the Olympic stadium. »
At the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, boxing legend Mohamed Ali, then aged 54 and seriously impaired by Parkinson’s disease, moved the entire planet by lighting the Olympic cauldron with a trembling hand. Olympic champion at the Rome Olympics in 1960, he threw his gold medal into the Ohio River a few years later, after he was refused service in a restaurant reserved for whites… As a replacement, he was given a new medal. offered in Atlanta.
A bullseye for eternity
Antonio Rebollo, Spanish disabled archer, competed in three Paralympic Games different (1984, 1988 and 1992). But he is best known for having, with a shot of an arrow passed down to posterity, lit the Olympic cauldron at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. In a packed Montjuïc stadium, the native of Madrid pointed the arrow above the basin to light the gas emanating from the latter. Of course, this method was designed to prevent the arrow from landing in the stadium if Rebollo missed his target (it ultimately landed on the plaza outside the stadium, as planned).
In Tokyo in 1964, the weight of History
For the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, a modest young athlete, Yoshinori Sakai, was nominated because he was born on the very day of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, nineteen years earlier. A choice aimed at celebrating peace, while bearing witness to Japanese reconstruction.
Four years later at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, Enriqueta Basilio, 20, a specialist in hurdles, became the first woman in the history of the Games to carry the flame and light the cauldron at the Estadio Olimpico Universitario. Thirty-two years after the protocol was put in place.
Cathy Freeman, the flame before the gold medal
At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the choice of Cathy Freeman, an Australian of Aboriginal origin, marked the Australian government’s desire to seal reconciliation between Aboriginal people and descendants of settlers of European origin. Freeman, rival of Pérec and already double world champion in the 400m, will become the first athlete to light the cauldron and win the gold medal.
It’s been three years, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, contested in 2021 due to the Covid pandemic, Japan had deliberately opted for Naomi Osaka. Walled in depression, the champion with four Grand Slam titles, 23 years old and world No. 2 at the time, reappeared in the face of the world for the occasion, after having withdrawn in quick succession from Roland-Garros and Wimbledon. Thanks to the Olympics, she too found the flame.
The list of the last torchbearers
Berlin (1936): Fritz Schilgen (athletics)
London (1948): John Mark (athletics)
Helsinki (1952): Hannes Kolehmainen (athletics)
Melbourne (1956): Ron Clarke (athletics)
Rome (1960): Giancarlo Peris (athletics)
Tokyo (1964): Yoshinori Sakai (student/athletic)
Mexico (1968): Norma Enriqueta Basilio de Sotelo (athletics)
Munich (1972): Günter Zahn (athletics, junior)
Montreal (1976): Sandra Henderson and Stéphane Préfontaine (gymnastics, juniors)
Moscow (1980): Sergei Belov (basketball)
Los Angeles (1984): Rafer Johnson (athletics)
Seoul (1988): Chung Sun-Man, Kim Won-Tak, Sohn Mi-Chung (athletics)
Barcelona (1992): Antonio Rebollo (archery)
Atlanta (1996): Mohamed Ali (boxing)
Sydney (2000): Cathy Freeman (athletics)
Athens (2004): Nikolaos Kaklamanakis (sailing)
Beijing (2008) : Ning Li (gymnastics)
London (2012): Callum Airlie, Jordan Duckitt, Cameron Mac Ritchie, Desirée Henry, Katie Kirk, Aidan Reynolds, Adelle Tracey (sailing, young ambassador, rowing, athletics)
Rio (2016): Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima (athletics)
Tokyo (2021): Naomi Osaka (tennis)
