It was in Saint-Malo that the flame’s journey to Ille-et-Vilaine began around 8 a.m. this Saturday. She set off on the Grand Bé, then continued on the ramparts, the Sillon beach and the Marville stadium. The skipper Fabrice Payen was responsible for introducing the flame into Brittany.
Sixteen other porters took over, including the sailor Servane Escoffier, the speed skater Alexis Contin and the starred chef Hugo Roellinger, as well as a number of anonymous people.
A potter with a bionic prosthesis made in France
In Fougères, in front of a crowd gathered in several rows, 16 flame bearers took turns at the end of the morning, for a route through the town between the Château and the Place de la République. Swimming champion Hadda Guerchouche, silver medalist at the Paralympic Games in Barcelona in 1992, and bronze in Atlanta in 1996, started the course.
In Paimpont, among the bearers, Nicolas Huchet, the co-founder of the My Human Kit association, was the first torchbearer in the history of the Olympic Games to carry the flame with a bionic prosthesis made in France.
In Vitré, around 2:45 p.m., we found among the torchbearers the Vitrean parapongist Thu Kamkasomphou, gold medalist in Sydney (2000) and Beijing (2008), 55 years old, who will participate in the Paralympic Games in Paris this summer. There was also Janzé PE teacher Julie Pophillat, who returned from Greece and Olympia with 4th grade students.
In Saint-Just, between Rennes and Redon, the young Jinane Mahi, a Rennes athlete specializing in the 1500 m and 3000 m, who, at 4:20 p.m., carried the torch across the Landes de Cojoux and among the megaliths. In Cesson-Sévigné, for its last stage before Rennes, the flame began its race with a collective relay organized by the French Canoe-Kayak Federation at the Cesson-Sévigné whitewater stadium.
Then, it was transported to the Baud plain in Rennes by hovercraft and rowing, by an 8 with coxswain.
In Rennes, Robert Poirier, 81, former athlete and former French athletics executive, had the honor of carrying the flame into the stadium that bears his name.
A dense crowd gathered along the 8 kilometers of the route, going from the Plaine de Baud to the Esplanade de Gaulle, via Place du Parlement, Place de la Mairie and the Stade Robert Poirier. 87 torchbearers followed one another in the streets of Rennes. Starting with Oksana Gutierrez, Plaine de Baud, Perle Bouge to finish and light the cauldron Esplanade de Gaulle.
The anonymous rubbed shoulders with personalities such as Rennais Jenia Grebennikov, Olympic champion with the French volleyball team in 2021 at the Tokyo Olympics, or artists like Chilla and Lujipeka who performed this very Saturday at Liberté.
