It won’t pass through some French cities and towns that didn’t want it but the Olympic Torch for the Paris 2024 Games will be lit April 16 in Olympia by priestesses wearing outfits that some on social media found weren’t just right.

The event will be televised live around the world, the flame set to be lit by high priestess Mary Mina, who will hand over the flame to the first torchbearer, Greek Olympic rowing champion Stefanos Ntouskos, the first of some 500 carriers.

The journey will be more than 2000 kilometers (1,243 miles) across Greece taking the flame to the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, site of the first modern games in 1896.

The torch will then sail to Marseille – founded by Greek settlers around 600 B.C., carried on the three-masted Belem, a ship classified as a historical monument since 1984 and it will be used to light the Olympic Flame in Paris on May 8.

That is 2 1 ⁄ 2 months before the games begin July 26 and will be placed not atop the Eiffel Tower as originally envisioned but in the Tuileries Gardens close to the Louvre, and burn until the games close on Aug. 11, said Agence France-Presse.

https://www.insidethegames.biz/index.php/articles/1144427/olympic-flame-near-louvre-not-eiffel

A high priority is being put on security with fears of terrorism, which Paris has suffered before and Israel’s ongoing invasion of the Gaza Strip in search of Hamas terrorists splitting world opinion and drawing sympathy for Palestinians.

At the 1972 Munich Games, members of the Black September Palestinian militants group killed two Israeli athletes and took nine hostage, all of whom were killed at the airport during a rescue attempt by German police.

The lighting of the cauldron is a key moment in the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games, signaling the official start of the world’s greatest sporting event, which has been marred by corruption and other cheating and voting scandals.

While it’s generally seen as an honor to have the flame pass through a community, cheered by onlookers, that hasn’t been the case in some places in France, which didn’t want it because of costs, Euronews said earlier.

https://www.euronews.com/2023/07/20/paris-2024-french-towns-say-non-merci-to-olympic-torch-relay-over-cost-concerns

The site said the cost to host the torch would be about 180,000 euros ($194,150) and the report said 10 of France’s 96 mainland departments – the administrative rung below the regional level – had said they didn’t want it passing through.

The organizing committee for the Paris 2024 Olympics said a “very large majority of departments have already welcomed” the flame, adding that the cost ensures that the torch crosses “the maximum number of territories” on its way to Paris.

In January 2023, the French government announced that the part of public funding for the games would increase to 2.4 billion euros ($2.59 billion) of the total expected to pass 3.2 billion euros ($3.45 billion) for the brief event.

The outfits that will be worn by the priestesses and a male at the lighting have drawn criticism as well as praise as they will veer from the traditional white or blue and be black and white and feature stripes.

They were designed by internationally renowned Greek designer Mary Katratzou and reportedly inspired by  Ionian columns and were presented at an event organized by the Hellenic Olympic Committee.

In a traditional ceremony, actress Mary Mina playing the high priestess for the first time will use a parabolic mirror and the sun’s rays to ignite the torch. “This is a big honor for me. I hope to live up to the trust you placed in me,” she said.