The Olympic torch is lit in a spectacular ceremony in ancient Olympia to mark the 100-day countdown to the Paris 2024 Games… with the flame to arrive in France next month ahead of the opening ceremony on 26 July

The torch for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games was lit in ancient Olympia in a traditional ceremony on Tuesday, marking the final leg of the seven-year preparations for the start of the Games on July 26.

Greek actress Mary Mina, who played the role of High Priestess, lit the torch using an extra flame instead of a parabolic mirror due to cloudy skies for the start of a relay in Greece and France.

It culminates with the lighting of the Olympic flame in the French capital at the opening ceremony.

From the ancient stadium of Olympia, a relay of torchbearers will carry the flame more than 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) through Greece until the handover to Paris Games organizers in Athens on April 26.

The first torchbearer was the Greek rower Stefanos Douskos, a gold medalist in 2021 in Tokyo. He will run to a nearby monument that contains the heart of French baron Pierre de Coubertin, the driving force behind the modern revival of the games.

The next runner will be Laure Manaudou, a French swimmer who won three medals in Athens in 2004. She will hand over to senior EU official Margaritis Schinas, a Greek.

The flame will then travel from the port of Athens in Piraeus on Belema French three-masted sailing ship built in 1896 – the year of the first modern games in Athens.

The flame will be taken to Marseille – a city founded by Greek colonists some 2,600 years ago – on May 8 and then gradually make its way to Paris ahead of the opening ceremony on July 26.

The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, said the Olympic flame will pass the site of the 2015 Islamist attack on the Bataclan concert hall as well as the Shoah memorial as it passes through Paris in July.

“This torch is a message of peace, a message of friendship between peoples, which is all the stronger at a time when the world is in such bad shape,” Hidalgo told France 2 TV from Olympia, Greece.

In Paris, torchbearers will also pass historic landmarks such as Place de la Concorde and the National Assembly and through working-class neighborhoods including Belleville or Porte de la Chapelle in the east and north, Hidalgo said.

Paris City Hall, which hosts the flame on July 14, when France celebrates Bastille Day, will stay open all night so “visitors and Parisians can see this symbol of fraternal transmission across the planet”, she added.

The flame will be brought to Marseille on May 8 before going to Paris

IOC President Thomas Bach spoke at the torch lighting ceremony in Greece

Paris’ Shoah Memorial is dedicated to Jewish history during World War II.

In November 2015, a group of Islamist gunmen targeted the Bataclan music hall as well as bars, restaurants and the Stade de France sports stadium, killing a total of 130 people.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday he would strive for a ceasefire at the Olympics, adding that he had the Middle East conflict in mind, as well as the wars in Ukraine and Sudan