The moment was particularly anticipated. Particularly because it constitutes the last stage before the arrival of the Olympic flame in France. Three months before the opening of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the Olympic flame boarded the Belem, which cast off from the Greek port of Piraeus. The sumptuous three-masted ship is expected on May 8 in Marseille where a big party is announced.
The president of the organizing committee for the Olympic Games, Tony Estanguet, expressed his “great emotion” at the time of beginning this journey. On Friday, the three-time Olympic canoe champion received the flame from the president of the Hellenic Olympic Committee Spyros Capralos during a ceremony at the Panathenaic Stadium. “Now we are going to bring her back to France with this boat, the Belem, which also dates from 1896.” A year which saw the organization of the first Olympic Games of the modern era.
A 58 meter ship, the Belem has been classified as a historic monument since 1984. It was in fact built in the 19th century at the Dubigeon shipyard in Nantes. It made 33 commercial campaigns until 1914 carrying goods from Brazil, Guyana and the West Indies in its steel hull. Victim of competition from steamboats, it was saved from abandonment by the Duke of Westminster who transformed it into a yacht.
A galley and 25 sailboats around
Since 1979, it has been owned by the Caisse d’Epargne, which created the Belem Foundation a year later to launch its restoration. Saturday morning, the three-masted ship was accompanied off the port of Piraeus by the trireme Olympias, an ancient combat galley which belongs to the Greek navy, and by 25 sailboats, in front of several dozen curious people who observed the scene under a veiled sun. behind security gates.
Spectators who should be much more numerous on May 8, when he arrives in Marseille. Some 150,000 people are expected to welcome him and an exceptional security system is planned, including 6,000 members of the police mobilized.
More than a thousand boats in the harbor
Before entering the Old Port in May, the Belem will parade in the harbor of the Phocaean city and will be accompanied by 1,024 boats. Entertainment is planned on land and at sea all day long. Still on the festivities side, Tony Estanguet announced Friday that swimmer Florent Manaudou, quadruple Olympic medalist and Olympic champion in the 50m freestyle in 2012, would be the first torchbearer on French soil.
The next day the Olympic relay will begin in the city, with stops planned at the Notre-Dame de la Garde basilica or the Stade Vélodrome. The flame will then cross the country, visiting the Antilles and French Polynesia in particular, to Paris, where the opening ceremony of the Games, scheduled for July 26 to August 11, will take place.