Paris 2024 Olympic Games: design, ring, color… why the cauldrons which will host the flame are surprising ?

The cauldron that will keep the Olympic flame burning. Felipe Ribón.

We finally know what the cauldrons that will keep the Olympic flame look like throughout its journey to Paris. But the shape of the latter

A simple metal ring which will let the fire reflect on a corrugated surface: the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games revealed on Monday the design of the cauldrons which will welcome the Olympic flame on the evenings of his crossing of France.

"An extremely simple object"

The flame of the Paris-2024 Olympic Games, lit on April 16 in Olympia in Greece, will arrive on May 8 in Marseille, aboard the three-mast Belem. From there, she will begin a journey across France, crossing 450 towns on the arm of 11,000 flame bearers, to reach Paris on July 26. But for the night and during the celebrations, the precious flame will be placed in a "cauldron".

Le Chaudron de Paris 2024 ✨
Désigné par Mathieu Lehanneur, il accueillera tous les soirs la Flamme Olympique dans les sites de célébrations du relais 🔥 pic.twitter.com/zOFRg7ZpoU

— Paris 2024 (@Paris2024) May 6, 2024

This one "will make an impression", hopes Delphine Moulin, director of the Paris-2024 celebrations, "since we will have the opportunity to light it 65 times on 65 celebration sites". The cauldron, designed like the Olympic torch by designer Mathieu Lehanneur, takes the form of a stainless steel ring 1.35 meters in diameter – and not a tank –, surmounting a base covered with a plate of corrugated hydroformed sheet metal.

"It’is an extremely simple object", described during a presentation at the presses the designer, "it’it’is a ring that seems to just be in suspension, just floating above a base where we will find this play of water’ ;quot; present on the Olympic torch, aquatic ripples which "obviously speak to us of the Seine", like a "teasing of the opening ceremony".

The object, whose pale color was designed in "mixing a gold, silver and bronze medal’ quot;, "takes on its full meaning when we set it ablaze", estimates its designer, thanks to the "reflections between this liquid relief sheet and the flame which seems to float above". Overall, "the idea for the cauldron was to make it a symbol of brotherhood", since "this is the object around which we will gather every evening of the relay", adds Lehanneur. The ring constituted "the clearest, most immediate symbol to recall this brotherhood", he estimated.

In total, 20 cauldrons will be manufactured by ArcelorMittal to cover the needs of the Olympic and Paralympic relay. Technically, the inside of the ring is pierced with 260 micro-holes of one and a half millimeters from which the gas will come out to maintain combustion, which will arrive through pipes hidden in the feet of the object. The world's second largest steelmaker, which also manufactures the Olympic torches and the Olympic rings for the Eiffel Tower, did not wish to reveal the amount of the contract for these three objects.