The Olympic torch: A piece of perfect symmetry

Dhe fire will come to France by ship. It will be brought ashore in Marseille on May 8th, from there it will go on and on, stage by stage, through all the French regions. And of course it also includes the five overseas territories of the Grande Nation: Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, French Polynesia and Réunion. The Olympic flame finally reaches Paris on July 26th, in time for the opening. Until then, a good 10,000 torchbearers carried the fire and passed it on. Because contrary to what some may believe: it is not the torch that is passed from hand to hand, only the fire. Each time the next wearer lights his torch again after it has been cleaned and filled with biopropane gas. Again and again, on average every 200 meters.

However, the torch is more than just a means to an end. Even if a lot of things are a little different in this Olympics, which of course also serves to protect the torch bearers and the fire. Because protests, especially from climate activists, must be expected in the two early summer months. The designer also had to adapt to this. But Olympic torches are not easy to blow out anyway; they have to withstand even the most extreme weather conditions. After all, one of them was already on the “Roof of the World” and in Tibet’s capital Lhasa before the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. “We built our own large wind machines in our studio,” says Mathieu Lehanneur. “No storm can harm our torch and its flame.” This of course also applies to rain and even snow.

For Lehanneur, the Olympic mission was a dream come true. The designer prevailed in a competition against ten or twelve other designers who were not officially named. “The guidelines of the Paris 2024 organizing committee were surprisingly manageable,” says Lehanneur. “There was no precise information about the size, weight or material of the torch, not even the type of burner inside. I basically had carte blanche.”

Design implemented without changes

His drawings not only convinced those responsible for Paris 2024, he also implemented them with millimeter precision. “Which is rather rare,” says Lehanneur. “Usually there are so many changes during the development process that the finished product differs greatly from the first draft sketch.”

What always bothered him about the previous torches was their shape. “They are usually slim at the bottom and thicken towards the top like a vase. To me it looks far too much like a weapon, like a club,” says Lehanneur, who was born in Rochefort-sur-Mer in 1974. The Olympic flame also stands for peace. “My torch plays with perfect symmetry for the first time in Olympic history. It thickens in the middle, but tapers equally at both ends.” In doing so, he also wants to express the message of equality that comes from these games. For example, the fact that just as many women as men will compete in Paris is also a first for the largest of all sporting competitions.