Cauldron at Paris Olympics looks like a hot-air balloon
Teddy Riner and Marie-Jose Perec watch as the cauldron rises in a balloon in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics 2o24, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
PARIS — The identity of the person who would light the Olympic cauldron for the Paris Olympics 2024 on Friday night (spoiler alert: Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner) was up in the air … and so, it turns out, was the cauldron itself: a ring of fire carried by a hot-air balloon.
Instead of the usual ground-bound cauldron used at most Summer and Winter Games, the special edition for the Paris Olympics is intended as a tribute to the first ride taken in a hydrogen-filled gas balloon — made in 1783 by two of that balloon’s French inventors.
They departed back then from the Tuileries Garden, which is near the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris — and where the 2024 Olympic cauldron was lit before appearing to float into the sky.
Created by French designer Mathieu Lehanneur, the cauldron is meant as a symbol of liberty — an element in the national slogan of “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.”
The ring is 7 meters in diameter (about 23 feet), and the balloon is 30 meters (about 100 feet) tall and 22 meters (about 72 feet) wide.
Follow Inquirer Sports’ special coverage of the Paris Olympics 2024.
