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Is the Olympic Cauldron Flying With a Sizzling-Air Balloon? This is Every part We Know


Did they simply ship the Olympic cauldron up into the Paris skies in a hot-air balloon? IS the cauldron a hot-air balloon? Will it simply float round there within the sky for 2 weeks? For those who watched the Paris Olympics opening ceremony on Friday, you might need these questions and extra.

Lengthy story quick: The cauldron shall be on the bottom through the day, however at sundown every evening, a balloon will increase it up into the sky, however it would stay tethered to the bottom.

The cauldron is 30 meters (98 ft) excessive with a 7-meter-diameter (22 ft) ring of fireplace. It’s going to fly 60 meters (196 ft) above the bottom from sundown till 2 a.m. “Fly” is not fairly proper, because it’ll nonetheless be tethered to the bottom, however will probably be up within the air. And the balloon itself is not a conventional hot-air balloon, though it seems to be like one. The flame is 100% electrical.

Normally, the cauldron is lit whereas on the bottom in the principle Olympic stadium, and stays grounded, its flame burning brightly, for the whole size of the Video games. However the Paris ceremony was totally different in some ways. Athletes did not march right into a stadium, as an alternative, they had been on boats floating down town’s Seine River. So there was no main stadium the place the ceremony ended and the place a cauldron might be positioned and lit.

As a substitute, numerous totally different athletes, some French, some from different nations, together with the US, handed the Olympic flame alongside, from athlete to athlete, till it reached the Jardin des Tuileries, close to the famed Louvre Museum. Then, the Video games paid homage to France’s historic hot-air-balloon historical past. The primary-ever hot-air balloon flight happened in Paris in 1783 from this spot, with a extra highly effective balloon doing the identical days later, from the identical spot. A century later, in 1878, French engineer Henri Giffard, invented the “captive balloon,” made up of a fuel balloon and a steam winch.

“The lighting of the Cauldron is at all times a spotlight on the Video games, as a result of it alerts the beginning of the Video games,” Tony Estanguet, president of Paris 2024, mentioned in a statement. “With a Flying Cauldron, we wished to pay tribute to the spirit of daring, creativity, innovation — and typically insanity! — of France, on the coronary heart of the DNA of Paris 2024.”

The 100% electrical flame burns no gasoline. The ring of fireplace makes use of 40 LED spotlights to light up the cloud created by 200 high-pressure misting nozzles. 

“Due to an innovation by EDF (France’s government-owned electrical utility), the Paris 2024 Cauldron will shine for the primary time with a 100% electrical flame,” mentioned Luc Rémont, chairman and CEO of EDF. “This ‘electrical revolution’ was made potential because of the monumental work carried out by our groups and designer Mathieu Lehanneur. Their creativity and revolutionary energy have made it potential to design a flame with out fossil gasoline combustion, a flame made from water and light-weight. The longer term is electrical, and EDF’s groups are proud to have made historical past by serving to to make Paris 2024 a extra sustainable and accountable Video games.” 

The Paris Olympics run by Aug. 11.





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