Tony Estanguet, its president, likes to emphasize it: the COJO Paris 2024 is proceeding in stages. One step after another. Friday June 23, in the solemn setting of the Sorbonne, he will unveil the journey of the Olympic flame. Tuesday May 30, he checked a previous line on his roadmap by announcing the details and methods of selecting the torchbearers.
No surprise: the COJO is innovating. A habit. But, this time, the novelty is more in the form than in the substance. It comes down to a few touch-ups. Next year, the bearers of the Olympic torch relay – planned between Marseille and Paris between May 8 and July 26 – will have the very boy scout name of scouts.
There will be 10.000 to pass the torch for the Olympic Games, then a thousand for the Paralympic Games, the relay of which will leave from Stoke-Mandeville, in England, and will last only a few days.
Second novelty, more real but already announced by the OCOG: the flame route will be open to collective relays. There will be 125 of them on the entire route, or on average two per day. Each of them will have 24 torchbearers, carefully arranged in a platoon around and behind a single flame bearer. Half of these collective relays will be made up of the French sports movement, including the 34 Olympic and Paralympic sports federations involved in the Games.
The calculation is easy: 7.000 “ scouts » Olympic athletes will be chosen individually, with the other 3.000 selected for a collective relay. On average, a relay will be 200 m, or no more than 4 minutes of a supposedly unforgettable life moment.
An air of déjà vu: the two flame routes, Olympic and Paralympic, will be supported by four ambassadors. The OCOG Paris 2024 gave them the name, and the armband, of “ relay captains”. Four gang leaders, but only three families: former swimmers Laure and Florent Manaudou, para triathlete Mona Francis, para long jumper Dimitri Pavadé.
For the rest, the Paris 2024 plan turns out to be quite conventional. The contingent of 11.000 flame bearers must reflect gender parity, diversity, and a balance between generations (minimum age, 15 years at the time of selection). It must make room for people with disabilities. And it will accept candidates from abroad.
The selection ? Balanced, too. Tony Estanguet explained it: the OCOG Paris 2024 has multiplied the criteria, with the desire to satisfy as many people as possible and not forget anyone. The exercise led him to divide the cake into three thick slices, but not necessarily of the same size: the sports movement (known and anonymous athletes, coaches, managers, etc.), the associative fabric, the territories (artisans, artists, personalities local…).
Balance, also, for the recruitment of “ scouts ». The two official sponsors of the torch relay – Coca-Cola and the BPCE banking group – will be able to choose around 30% of the torchbearers. The COJO Paris 2024 and its “ stakeholders” (State, Ile-de-France region, city of Paris, IOC, etc.) will select approximately the same number. The private partners of the organizing committee will have an identical privilege. Finally, the remaining 10% – a good thousand people – will be proposed by the 64 territories crossed by the relay.
Money? To questions relating to the budget of the operation, Tony Estanguet responded with the same formula, already used many times: “ We do not communicate on these figures. » But he reminded us: two thirds of the costs of the flame's journey are covered by the OCOG, thanks to its private partners. The remaining third is provided by the territories crossed, at a rate of 150.000 euros excluding tax per department.
Finally, clarification provided by Delphine Moulin, the director of the COJO Paris 2024 celebrations: it will not be possible for “ scouts » to buy a torch once their relay has been completed. The reason is part of the organizers' sustainability approach: the production of torches will be reduced to what is strictly necessary.
