Stefanos Ntouskos, an Olympic rowing gold medalist, will be the first 2024 Olympic torch relay torchbearer, continuing the tradition of a Greek athlete starting the relay at the ancient Olympic site of Olympia.
The Olympic Flame lighting ceremony is April 16 in Olympia. The Greek leg of the Olympic torch relay will last to April 26 and include about 600 torchbearers.
The flame will then cross the Mediterranean Sea aboard the Belem, a three-masted ship, “reminiscent of a true Homeric epic,” according to Paris 2024. It will arrive at the Old Port of Marseille, welcomed by an armada of boats, to start the French leg of the relay through the July 26 Opening Ceremony in Paris.
Ntouskos, 26, was one of two Greeks to win Olympic gold in Tokyo, along with long jumper Miltiadis Tentoglou. He became Greece’s first Olympic rowing champion, doing so in single sculls.
For the 2022 Winter Olympics, the first torchbearer was Greek Alpine skier Ioannis Antoniou.
For Tokyo 2020, it was 2016 Olympic shooting gold medalist Anna Korakaki of Greece, who became the first woman to be the first torchbearer.
