On the evening of May 8, 2024, a three-masted sailing ship from 1896 came into the Old Port of Marseille carrying a flame from Greece. The Belem had spent nearly two weeks crossing the Mediterranean. Around 150,000 people were expected on the waterfront, with fireworks overhead and the Marseille Philharmonic playing the ship in. Swimmer Florent Manaudou stepped off with the torch.
If you want a preview of the 2028 relay across America, Paris 2024 is the one LA28's planners have studied most.
A Relay Built Like a Show
About 10,000 torchbearers carried the flame across France between May 8 and July 26, 2024, through more than 400 towns and cities, including the overseas territories. The Paralympic relay that followed added roughly 1,000 more. Each day ran like an episode: a route through landmarks, local people in the morning, a celebrity or athlete closing the evening stage with a cauldron lighting.
The final day went to Snoop Dogg. On the morning of July 26, in gold sneakers, he carried the torch through Saint-Denis near the Stade de France, blowing kisses at the crowd on the last leg before the opening ceremony. It became one of the most shared images of the Games. Paris handed its final hours to a rapper from Long Beach and it felt right, which tells you the organizers knew they were making television.
The Sponsors Behind It
Coca-Cola was the presenting partner of the relay, alongside the French banks Banque Populaire and Caisse d'Epargne. The sponsors also supplied people. Paris 2024 collected more than 100,000 applications and nominations for torchbearer spots, including about 15,000 candidates through Coca-Cola's own campaign, plus tens of thousands more through the Club Paris 2024 community. Coca-Cola staged free concerts along the route too.
For anyone who wants to carry the flame in 2028, that is the most useful fact in this article: sponsor nomination channels are enormous. I broke down what that means for Americans in my guide to becoming an LA28 torchbearer.
The Towns That Said No
Paris 2024 asked France's departments to pay 150,000 euros each (about 180,000 with taxes) to host a stage of the relay. Eight departments publicly refused, from rural Creuse to Loire-Atlantique, calling the price exorbitant for local sports budgets. Organizing committee president Tony Estanguet defended the fee, insisting "we are not in a logic of making money" and that staging costs ran far higher than the contribution.
Both sides had a point, and the dispute never fully went away. The relay map was partly a map of who would pay. A 50-state American relay will face the same question: who funds each day on the road, and what happens to the towns that cannot.
The Ending
Paris got its ending right twice. First came the opening ceremony on the Seine, athletes on boats instead of a stadium march, the first Summer Games opening held outside a stadium. Then the cauldron: designer Mathieu Lehanneur's ring of "fire" beneath a 30 meter helium balloon in the Tuileries Garden, a tribute to the balloon flight from that same spot in 1783. The flame was light and water mist, not fire, and every night it rose over Paris while crowds queued for hours below. The balloon now returns to the Tuileries every summer until the LA Games.
The Belem opened the relay and the balloon closed it. Everything in between drew on both.
What LA28 Should Copy, and What It Cannot
Much of the playbook carries over. Open and close the relay with a strong image. Give sponsors real slots and let them recruit in public. Build each day around a local cast. Save one leg for a figure only your country could produce: Paris had Snoop in Saint-Denis, and America will argue over its own version.
Scale does not carry over. France is one compact country, and its relay still strained budgets and logistics for two and a half months. LA28 has confirmed a relay across all 50 states, something no Olympics has attempted, and that multiplies every Paris problem: more days, more security, more funding questions, more towns hoping the flame comes down their street. The first decision is made. The relay starts in Atlanta in spring 2028.
Why I Am Watching
I am a runner in Santa Monica campaigning for one of those 2028 torchbearer slots, and Paris is my syllabus. The relay will be sponsored, produced and argued over, and the people carrying it will be the ones whose stories were already written down when the forms opened. Mine is this site. If you know someone whose story belongs on that route, nominate them, and follow the details at the 50-state relay hub.
