the opaque selection of the Olympic flame torchbearers | EUROtoday

Scouts, bearers, runners, torchbearers… Whatever the time period chosen to designate them, there will probably be ten thousand of them who will convey in flip, due to the Olympic relay, the flame, which is able to cross France, from Marseille to Paris, between the May 8 and July 26. While the names of a few of them have been revealed, the identities of a giant quantity stay unknown.

In the Meuse, one of many sixty-four departments which joined the operation, for instance, we nonetheless know nothing in regards to the majority of the hundred individuals who will carry the torch on June 29. “We asked Cojop [Comité d’organisation des Jeux olympiques et paralympiques] to give us the list of torchbearers, but they do not want to, to protect their personal data, they say”, testifies Thomas Furdin, head of the youth and sports activities service inside the departmental council.

This is, to some extent, the results of the complexity of the foundations outlined by the Committee to proceed with the selection of those flame bearers. Between what the departments might do, what was as much as Paris 2024, its companions, the sports activities motion or the “sponsors” of the relay (Coca-Cola and the BPCE banking group), the choice course of by every entity remained pretty nebulous.

Paris 2024 additionally stored management of the validation of all of the torchbearers. Like on communication. With the results of relative opacity. To the nice dismay of the sixty-four communities, who paid 180,000 euros to host the occasion, however who have been solely in a position to decide on 10% of the flame bearers. “We discover the other names little by little, via the press, communications from partners or people who say on social networks that they have been selected”, regrets Thomas Furdin.

“It’s a complex mechanism”

“We end up wondering if they are hiding the list from us because they don’t want us to know that there are non-Meusians”, continues the departmental supervisor, whereas emphasizing that this “ removes the incarnation aspect of the flame on the territories ». “We will definitely uncover the identities on D-day, however we might have created emulation round these Meusiens who will probably be on the coronary heart of the operation. »

However, the checklist of chosen personalities was already 80% established at first of the 12 months, when Paris 2024 revealed the primary info on the torchbearers. For the Meuse, we then discovered that Benjamin Rondeau, bronze medalist in Beijing in 2008, can be captain of the collective relay of the French Rowing Federation in Verdun.

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