PARIS: Paris 2024 organisers have been planning to install the Olympic flame on the Eiffel Tower, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Monday.

The source added that the flame would not be put at the top of the Eiffel Tower, for technical reasons, and it was not clear whether it would stay on the monument throughout the Games but the combination of two such iconic images would be a dramatic backdrop to the July 26-Aug 11 event.

“It’s been a work in progress for the last two years now,” the source said.

The flame cannot be at the top of the tower because of the antennas already installed there, they added.

“The venue for the lighting of the flame on the Opening Day of the Olympic Games has not yet been decided,” a Paris 2024 spokesperson told Reuters.

They did not deny working on installing the flame at the Eiffel Tower and would not disclose when any announcement would be made.

The flame will arrive in the port city of Marseille on May 8 by boat — the three-masted tall ship “Belem” — after a 10-day journey across the Mediterranean from Greece.

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2023