Paris 2024 Olympics: why the Olympic flame must always be extinguished at the end of the closing ceremony ?

La vasque olympique brille dans le ciel de Paris. MAXPPP – John Walton

The modern Olympic Games follow a large number of highly codified rituals. Among them, the extinguishing of the cauldron and the flame at the end of the closing ceremony.

Since May 8, 2024 and its arrival at the Old Port of Marseille, the Olympic flame has been shining on French territory. In a few days, it will be officially extinguished after months of travel, as required by the protocol for the closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games.

A mandatory ritual at each Olympiad

Every four years, the story begins in front of the ruins of the Temple of Hera in Olympia (Greece), in a ceremony organized by the Hellenic Olympic Committee on the site of the ancient Games. A High Priestess lights the flame for the first time using the rays of the sun. Then begins the Olympic torch relay, which has extended in France until July 26, 2024, the date of the opening ceremony at the end of which Teddy Riner and Marie-José Pérec lit the cauldron in the Tuileries Gardens.

At each closing ceremony, protocol therefore stipulates that the cauldron must be extinguished, to mark the end of the Olympiad. After the fact, “any torch, cauldron or other device whatsoever used for the combustion of the Olympic flame may only be used with the approval of the IOC”, according to the Olympic charter.

The Paris cauldron will be lit again

Since the first Paralympic Games, celebrated in Rome in 1960, a torch relay is organized. There is therefore a new route, other bearers and above all, a new lighting of the cauldron. This is why the Tuileries balloon, designed by Mathieu Lehanneur, will fly again in the skies of Paris from August 28 to September 8.

Many Paralympic athletes such as Stéphane Molliens (double gold medalist and triple silver medalist) are today trying to raise awareness among Olympic authorities so that the flame is no longer extinguished at the end of the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games, to create a link with the Paralympics. It is not certain, however, that the IOC would be of this opinion given the rigidity of the protocol.