The 2024 Olympic “flame” isn’t really a flame at all. The 30-meter-high cauldron, designed by Mathieu Lahanneur, is an optical illusion: it’s a plume of water mist created by 200 high-pressure nozzles. The resulting cloud is then illuminated by 40 electric LED projectors. Both the electricity and water are fed to the “balloon” from the ground.
The Olympic Flame Departs for France
The Belem
Image: ©Cqui - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10889466
The Olympic flame departed Athens, Greece, for Marseille, France, on Saturday morning, April 27. And how is it making the 12-day journey? On a three-masted 19th-century French barque, the Belem—in impressive tall ship classified as a historical monument. The captain and young crew all volunteered to make the voyage. Some 150,000 people are expected to welcome it when it makes port. So there it is: if you want to arrive in style, do it on a classy 19th-century French boat.
Hey! We’ve got two of those… (even if ours are replicas)