The resident of the Cercle des Nageurs de Marseille, Florent Manaudou, will be the first bearer of the Olympic flame in France, announced this Friday evening the president of the organizing committee for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games, Tony Estanguet, from Athens .
Aged 33, Manaudou was crowned Olympic champion to everyone’s surprise in the 50m freestyle in London twelve years ago. He also collected three silver medals during the following two Olympics (on 50m freestyle again in 2016 and 2021, and with the 4x100m relay in 2016). In Paris, he will still be in search of the most precious metal.
It’s in Provence that the eight-time world champion, based for two years in Antibes where he trains, had declared his love for the flame, at the beginning of November 2023. As a wink, his big sister, Laure Manaudou, also an Olympic champion (in 2004), was the first French torchbearer on Greek soil, Tuesday April 16 in Olympia.
Arriving this Friday in Athens, the Olympic flame was handed over in the evening to the French organizers of the next Games, during a ceremony. She will embark this Saturday on the three-masted Belem to reach Marseille and its Old Port, where she will arrive on May 8.