2024 Olympic torch relay to start in France's Marseille

By Can Erozden

ANKARA (AA) – The 2024 Olympic torch relay will begin in Marseille, a famous French Mediterranean city, the Olympics announced on Friday.

"The Olympic flame will make its first stop on the Paris 2024 Torch Relay in Marseille, France in the spring of 2024," it said in a statement.

"Following its lighting in Olympia (in Greece), the site of the Ancient Olympic Games, the flame will travel to Marseille in the South of France, transported on the Belem, a majestic three-masted vessel that first took to the seas in 1896," it said, adding that the ship will connect Athens to Marseille, as both cities have "a deep-rooted shared history."

Paris 2024 President Tony Estanguet said that 10 Olympic sailing events and 10 football matches will be held in Marseille during the next year's Summer Games.

Marseille's Stade Orange Velodrome, a multi-purpose stadium and the home of Olympique Marseille, can host at least 67,000 spectators after the renovation works that finished in 2014.

The Olympics added that the torch relay route will be unveiled in May 2023.

The 2024 Summer Games will start with an opening ceremony on July 26 in Paris and will run through Aug. 11.