Teddy Riner and Marie-José Pérec light the Paris 2024 Olympic cauldron

On 26 July 2024, the Paris Olympic Games opened with an unprecedented ceremony held along the River Seine rather than in a stadium. It ended in the Tuileries Garden, beside the Louvre, where the cauldron was lit.

The final torchbearers were Teddy Riner, the French judoka, and Marie-José Pérec, the former sprinter. Riner is a multiple Olympic champion and a record-holding world champion in judo. Pérec won three Olympic gold medals in athletics in the 1990s. The two took the flame from earlier relay runners and lit a cauldron that then rose above the garden in a ring-shaped structure, suspended beneath a large balloon.

The choice mattered because both athletes are widely admired in France. It placed Riner, already one of the country's best-known sportspeople, at the centre of a national moment watched by a large audience at home and abroad. The image of him with the flame has since been part of his public profile, as the story of a possible political career has developed.