COVER N. 531 - FRANCE

Postmark: 58 Corbigny Nièvre 08.11.2024

Posted on the 8th November; Received on the 15th November 2024

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Merci Jean-Pierre for this cover which highlights the beauty of the solution French ingenuity found to ensure a greener (or should I say yellower...) light for the  Olympic Games pyre.

And Obrigado also to Mr. Postman, who did deliver the letter to its right destination, even if the address was missing the name of the street. By now, I'm sure Mr. Postman knows who is the only guy in the neighbourhood who frequently receives envelopes adorned with nice stamps... ;-)

One of the most anticipated moments of the Olympic Games inaugural ceremony is the moment when the Olympic flame is lit in the pyre.

It comes as no surprise, then, that with each Olympiad a newer, more spectacular, bolder solution is devised by the organising team. 

In fact, in time, one might forget much of the opening ceremony, but moments like the flame travelling upwards towards the cauldron, after being set alight by Mohamed Ali, in the games of Atlanta, or the cauldron being set alight by an arrow carrying the flame, shot by paralympic archer Antonio Rebollo, in Barcelona, will never be forgotten by those who watched it either in loco or by TV.

So Paris, the city of lights and of the first hot air balloon flights carrying human passengers had to come up with an unforgettable way of setting the cauldron alight too, and this it totally did.

And it all began with another unforgettable moment: Charles Coste, a100 years old cyclist, who won gold in 1948, in London, as a member of the French team who came first in the pursuit competition, handed the Olympic flame to  Teddy Riner and Marie-José Pérec...moving to say the least.

The two athletes then set the cauldron, which was suspended from a Helium Sphere resembling a hot air balloon, "alight"... wait... not set alight...  turned on the lights, is more appropriate, for the "flame" was mad of LED lights and water spray... impressionism as its best, or were Paris not also the city of impressionism... 

On 09AUG2024, La Poste issued  a collectors item comprising 4 self-adhesive  "International" rate stamps just like the one Jean-Pierre used on this cover,  illustrated with a photo of the lit Cauldron hanging under the helium sphere, that would lift it into the air every day for the duration of the games.