American rapper Snoop Dogg held the flame aloft as the Olympic torch relay neared the end of its 68-stage trek through France ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony.
The flame was also borne by International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach and a string of beaming, waving, volunteer carriers.
“The relay is over,” said an official preparing to drive away from the last stop on the Canal Saint Martin in a car carrying the slogan “flame relay.”
“Next stop: the cauldron.”
The heavily-guarded flame was headed into the centre of town ready for the final lap of its long journey, ending with the revelation of which star would run the final leg and light the cauldron to officially start the Games.
The last day of the relay was entitled the “Epilogue.”
The torch had passed through some smarter Paris addresses, on July 14, the Bastille Day national holiday, and July 15, before circling the suburbs.
It started its final journey in Saint-Denis, home of the main Olympic Stadium and the Athletes’ Village, on Friday, before sailing down the still-industrial Canal Saint-Denis and under the motorway that surrounds Paris into the traditionally blue-collar 19th-arrondissement, braving occasional drizzle.
At the Athletes’ Village, Bach and former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon took turns as torchbearers.
“Now the real thing starts. We’re all in sports. We know that what happened until now is just training. You can feel the vibe among the athletes and the organisers,” Bach told a crowd of athletes.
Yiech Biel, who ran the 800m for the Refugee Olympic Team at Rio in 2016 and is an IOC committee member representing South Sudan, found the experience moving.
“You want me to cry, or what?” he asked.
Biel said, “It is an honour to carry this torch for the first time. I am representing millions of refugees who are not here today and also representing different athletes, different diversities and different communities, and that is what makes me so emotional to be here.”
– ‘Vive les Jeux Olympiques’ –
At the stadium, Snoop Dogg in a gold jacket before changing into his white relay tracksuit, tried out his French.
“Vive les Jeux Olympiques,” said the rapper, a special correspondent at the Games for US network NBC.
With the torch held aloft he danced, walked, ran and waved as the crowd shouted “Snoop!.”
“Imagine he’s acting crazy, he takes the flame, and he lights his joint with it!” said one spectator, Toufik.
From the stadium, the flame crossed the canal in Aubervilliers for a series of boat rides, cruising past concrete factories and housing blocks to Paris accompanied by a crowd of spectators, security, officials and even canoeists in fancy dress.
With each torch holding enough fuel for six minutes, progress was interrupted by frequent, choreographed, stops as one torch lit the next and cameras snapped and whirred.
“It doesn’t happen frequently. It’s exceptional,” said Nathalie, who didn`t give her family name, from Aubervilliers as she remained on an extension anticipating the flame.
The fire cruised under the peripheries and into Paris on a diesel-burping channel boat, the light held on high by its white-clad conveyor to be welcomed by a crowd resting over the rail on the following bridge.
The hand-off visited the Parc de la Villette, which transformed into the Parc des Countries lodging the ‘clubhouses’ of a series of nations, overwhelmed by France in the Grande Halle, and remembering Brazil for a bazaar tent, and Mongolia in yurts.
The transfer then took to the water and traveled down the Trench de l’Ourcq, as the developing group thundered and took up a football serenade, towards the Trench Holy person Martin and its last experience with the symbolic cauldron.
