PARIS: The design of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paraly­mpic torch was unveiled on Tuesday, imitating the reflection of the Eiffel Tower on the ruffled surface of the Seine river and conveying a peaceful energy, its designer said.

Creator Mathieu Lehanneur said the rounded torch was symmetrical from top to bottom and through 360 degrees, its soft curves representing peacefulness and its symmetry standing for equality between athletes.

Made with a lightweight polished steel and with a champagne colour, the torch’s lower half features a relief pattern that mimics the movement of the Seine, along which the opening ceremony will be held before more than half a million spectators.

Lehanneur said he hoped the torch conveyed a visual representation of the sporting event Paris 2024 wants to deliver.

“I wanted to move away from the torch appearing as an object of conquest,” designer Mathieu Lehanneur told a news conference a year ahead of the Paris Games, adding that designing the torch proved infinitely more technical than he imagined at the outset.

“The magic is not the torch itself, but the flame.”

The torch will be lit at Greece’s ancient Olympia, the birthplace of the Games on April 16, marking the countdown to the Games in the French capital that begin on July 26 next year.

It will arrive in the Mediterr­anean port city of Marseille on May 8 and pass through cities and sights including Strasbourg, the Pantheon in Paris and the Mont Saint-Michel before a relay in some of France’s overseas territories.

‘I KNOW WHAT FRANCE CAN DELIVER’

Meanwhile Tony Estanguet, the chief organiser of the 2024 Olympics, said he can’t wait for France to show the world what it can do when the Games open in spectacular fashion in a year’s time.

Estanguet, a three-time Olym­pic gold medallist in canoeing, says excitement is building as Wednesday’s one-year-to-go anniversary ticks up.

He will oversee a unique opening ceremony, taking the event out of its traditional stadium setting and onto a series of barges carrying the teams along the River Seine past the Eiffel Tower.

For Estanguet, 49, the ceremony will be the perfect opportunity to show the world that these Games have a distinctively French flair — “a little bit like the signature of Paris 2024”.

“I made the Olympics four times and I felt this unique atmosphere in the countries where I participated in the Games,” he told AFP in an interview.

“And I know the world my country is able to deliver also. And since day one, I’m really focused on how this country, France, is able to surprise the world, but also to demonstrate a new kind of Games delivery.”

Estanguet said the model of Paris 2024 “is the best possible marriage between a spectacular Games, but also a Games with purpose, engaged”.

“We really want to demonstrate that this is feasible, to have on one side spectacular emotions and unique emotions, but on the other side, a new kind of delivery, more responsible, more engaging also with people.”

Efforts are being made to slash the carbon footprint compared to previous Olympics.

Another eye-catching pledge is that organisers say Paris will be the first time that male and female athletes are equally represented at an Olympics.

The preparations of the organising committee received a jolt last month when police raided its offices in an anti-corruption investigation into contracts awarded for the Games.

The homes of Etienne Thobois, the Chief Executive Officer of Paris 2024, and Edouard Donnelly, the executive director of operations, were also raided.

Estanguet said: “Paris 2024 is probably one of the most regulated and monitored organisations since the beginning.

“We have been controlled [audited] by the Cour des Comptes [state spending watchdog] five times over the last three years, we have been controlled by France’s anti-corruption body. We were investigated by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office recently.

“So far, no evidence of wrongdoing has been demonstrated. So let’s have confidence that this team is doing its job in the best manner and I have confidence in the procedures and also in the team working and involved in Paris 2024.”

There was criticism in France when tickets for athletics went on sale for nearly 700 euros ($775), but organisers argue that hundreds of thousands for other sports have been sold at the lowest price of 24 euros.

Seven million tickets have been sold already, out of a total 10 million.

“It is fantastic to know that there is that level of expectation,” Estanguet said. “On the other side, of course, we also know that that’s something we cannot match and there will not be enough tickets to answer this level of expectation.”

ATHLETES WILL LIKE OLYMPIC VILLAGE: BACH

International Olympic Commi­t­tee president Thomas Bach toured the under-construction Athletes’ Village for the 2024 Olympics on Tuesday and said the 10,500 competitors would be “very happy” there.

“I know that they will be very happy. I even had the opportunity to test the bed and I can assure them they will sleep very well in these beds,” Bach said.

The Olympics chief is in Paris to mark Wednesday’s one-year-to-go anniversary.

He spent some time visiting the site in Saint-Denis to the north of Paris and declared the Village to be “extremely well-planned” and “very compact”.

The bedrooms in the Athletes’ Village have been designed without air conditioning, but organisers promise they will be naturally cooled.

“There the organising committee has taken a great effort and many measures... so that they can produce a temperature six degrees minus [lower] than outside,” Bach said.

Usain Bolt, the now-retired Jamaican sprinter who won eight Olympic gold medals, also tried out the torch and promised: “I will be here next year with my family”.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2023