Bad omen for the Paris Games

This year the ‘god Apollo’ did not send the rays to give birth to the Olympic Flame. This was the only flaw in the brilliant ceremony, which took place on Tuesday, 16/4, in the birthplace of the Olympic Games. However, Even the cloudy weather had been foreseen: The ritual provides for a spare flame to be lit in the last rehearsal.

The ceremony was held in the presence of the President of the Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, 600 guests from Greece and abroad and thousands of people. “In these difficult times we are living through, with wars and conflicts on the rise, people are fed up with all the hate, the aggression and negative news they are facing day in and day out,” International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach said in his speech. “We are longing for something which brings us together, something that is unifying, something that gives us hope. The Olympic Flame that we are lighting today is the symbol of this hope.”

In the sanctuary of Olympia, in front of the ruins of the temple of Hera, the 2,600 years-old cradle of the ancient Olympic Games, the High Priestess (Greek actress Mary Mina) lit the torch from the flame that had been kept. This was followed by the Dance of the Priestesses and the 15 Kouros in the choreography created and directed by Choreographer Artemis Ignatiou, with costumes by Mary Katrantzou, to the sounds of the music of the composer Dimitris Papadimitriou; then, the High Priestess Mary Mina entered the Ancient Stadium with the Olympic Flame to hand it over to the first Torchbearer, Olympic Rowing Gold Medalist, Stefanos Dusko. French Olympic swimming champion Lor Manodou and EU Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas completed the top three.

The torch relay on Greek soil will last 11 days in total, the Olympic Flame will travel 5,202 kilometers and 563 nautical miles in the hands of 600 Torchbearers. It will travel to 13 regions, seven islands, 43 cities, 41 municipalities, 5 communities, 10 archaeological sites and 2 Olympic museums (Athens and Thessaloniki).

It will be handed over to the Organizing Committee of the Paris Olympic Games on April 26, at the Panathenaic Stadium, site of the first modern Games in 1896. Nana Mouskouri, the 89-year-old Greek singer with a worldwide following, has been invited to perform at the ceremony. The Flame will then depart for France on board a three-masted ship, the “Belem”. It will arrive on May 8 in Marseilles (founded by the Greek settlers of Phocaea around 600 BCE) with up to 150,000 people expected to attend the ceremony in the southern city’s Old Port.

The torch will then travel through 400 towns and dozens of tourist attractions during its 12,000-kilometre (7,500-mile) journey through mainland France and overseas French territories in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and the Pacific before forming the centerpiece of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony on July 26.

The absence of the ‘god Apollo’ from the lightning ceremony could be taken as a bad omen. Perhaps it is a reaction, of the two previous audience-less ceremonies (for the summer and the winter Olympics), in the years of the pandemic. Perhaps again the ‘god Zeus’ did not allow it, doubting whether, this summer, there will be an Olympic truce. The strange thing is how they managed to convince the ‘god Mercury’, who seems to have the first say in recent decades, given the commercialization of the Games.

In their book The Business of Olympic Games Sponsorship published by economia/Kerkyra, Nelly Kapsi and Eleni Beneki took a historic look at the relationship the business community and the Olympic Games have maintained from ancient times until our times. They study which business sectors have been involved more (or stood to gain more) from the Olympic Games throughout the event’s history. They are also looking for answers in questions like: What necessitated the implementation of a marketing and sponsorship strategy of the Games? Which host cities/countries have made the most of the Games’ potential? Which are the motivating factors for a company to become involved in the Games? What is the current situation and what are the emerging trends?