The flame that will light the Olympic torch in Paris July 26 has started its journey from Mount Olympus in Greece aboard a 19th-century sailing vessel that was launched just weeks after the first ‘modern’ Olympic Games in 1896.
The ship sailed from Piraeus, accompanied by an ancient-style trireme of the Greek Navy, and passed through the Corinth Canal, a 19th-century landmark built by Greece with French financing, and will reach Marseille, once a Greek colony, on May 8th. At Marseille, over a thousand vessels of all sorts will accompany it into the harbor.
From there, relays of ten thousand torchbearers will carry it on foot through 12,000 kilometres of France and French overseas territories before it arrives in Paris.
I remember back in 1984 when the Olympic torch route went right past my apartment in southern California. If memory serves me correctly, people had to pay about $3000 for the privilege of carrying the torch one mile (but they did get to keep their torch as a souvenir). I was excited. Expecting to see an athlete with Bruce Jenner’s build run by, I was a disappointed to see that the torch carrier past my place was a wheezy kid of about 6 y.o who could barely hold the torch up.