Paris 2024 Olympic Games: who is the mysterious “Zorro”, who will light the Olympic cauldron on the evening of the opening ceremony

The masked character will only be revealed at the end of the ceremony. – France TV screen capture

In an episode of the series “At the heart of the Games”, broadcast Monday evening on France 2, a passage on a brainstorming session concerning the opening ceremony saw Thomas Jolly, artistic director, talking about ;a certain "Zorro" to turn on the basin.

But who could be "Zorro" ? The famous masked vigilante dressed in black ? Or a code name to keep the secret around the personality who will light the cauldron Olympic Friday evening.

As the opening ceremony, which will take place on the Seine, Friday July 26 at 8:24 p.m., approaches, France 2 broadcast Monday evening, the first two episodes of its series & ;quot;At the heart of the Games". In this documentary, a scene from episode two plunges us into a meeting between around ten officials, in charge of organizing a "pioneering ceremony , a puzzle with 50,000 pieces, as Thomas Jolly, artistic director, announces to his teams. In the company of Victor Le Masne, musical director of the ceremonies, Jolly retraces the common thread of the evening.

Zorro for Zizou ?

"Zorro enters first, the bearer gives the flame to Zorro, he removes his mask… Zorro returns, the bearer is there, he comes towards him (he mimes a character unmasking)", suggests the artist. The person who will light the Olympic cauldron will be masked until the last moment, we learn from the head of the ceremony. The code name of "Zorro" can suggest several hypotheses as to the identity of the last torchbearer of the Olympic flame.

If Marie-José Pérec and Zinedine Zidane seem to be neck and neck to be in the spotlight, at the end of the ceremony, the pseudonym "Zorro" with his famous "Z" would give a slight advantage to the former number 10 of the Blues. Unless "Zorro" does not refer to a famous French actor: Jean Dujardin, who will play the character in an eponymous series next school year. Thomas Jolly and his teams may also have gone for a completely different option, which will surprise everyone.