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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

French diver laughs off ‘funny’ fall in front of Macron

A French international diver on Friday laughed off an embarrassing mishap in front of President Emmanuel Macron which saw him fall on the diving board and crash into the water at the inauguration of the aquatics centre for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Published: 5 April 2024 12:53 CEST
French diver laughs off 'funny' fall in front of Macron
French diver Alexis Jandard, who has qualified for the Paris Games, falling while diving during a demonstration alongside two qualified French divers, as the French President inaugurates the Olympic Aquatics Centre (CAO), a multifunctional venue for the Paris 2024 Olympics in Saint-Denis, on April 4, 2024. (Photo by Handout / METROPOLE DU GRAND PARIS / AFP)

Alexis Jandard, a two-time world championship minor medallist, has won widespread praise on social media for gamely mocking his own misfortune rather than silently retreating into a corner.

Jandard, performing a synchronised routine on the 3 metre board with two other divers during the ceremony, lost his footing while jumping, landed painfully on the board on his back and bottom and then splashed into the water.

“I am fine really! It’s superficial although it looks impressive on the images,” Jandard told BFMTV after waking up to discover Thursday’s mishap had become a viral meme overnight.

“The fall was ridiculous… it’s part of the game. If I look at the fall it’s funny.

“It’s something that happens to us in diving — not regularly but it’s not surprising. It happens in training sometimes, in competition. But there it was in front of the president during the inauguration of the pool. I told myself it was the worst moment!”

He said he had received a message from the president and the Minister of Sports Amelie Oudea-Castera had phoned him to ensure all was well.

Of the Olympics he added: “The objective is clear to get on the podium.”

Jandard had on Thursday evening already taken to Instagram with a smiles-filled video, telling followers they deserved a “little debrief” and acknowledging he had “fallen in front of the president of the republic, in front of all of France”.

“Have a laugh at me, because frankly I deserve it,” he said.

Jandard is to compete in Paris in the 3 metre synchronised event.

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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Olympic torch sets sail at start of its voyage to France

The Olympic flame set sail on Saturday on its voyage to France on board the Belem, the Torch Relay reaching its climax at the revolutionary Paris Games opening ceremony along the river Seine on July 26.

Published: 27 April 2024 13:33 CEST
Olympic torch sets sail at start of its voyage to France

“The feelings are so exceptional. It’s such an emotion for me”, Tony Estanguet, Paris Olympics chief organiser, told reporters before the departure of the ship from Piraeus.

He hailed the “great coincidence” how the Belem was launched just weeks after the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896.

“These games mean a lot. It’s been a centenary since the last time we organised the Olympic games in our country,” he added.

The 19th-century three-masted boat set sail on a calm sea but under cloudy skies.

It was accompanied off the port of Piraeus by the trireme Olympias of the Greek Navy and 25 sailing boats while dozens of people watched behind railings for security reasons.

“We came here so that the children understand that the Olympic ideal was born in Greece. I’m really moved,” Giorgos Kontopoulos, who watched the ship starting its voyage with his two children, told AFP.

On Sunday, the ship will pass from the Corinth Canal — a feat of 19th century engineering constructed with the contribution of French banks and engineers.

‘More responsible Games’ 

The Belem is set to reach Marseille — where a Greek colony was founded in around 600 BCE — on May 8.

Over 1,000 vessels will accompany its approach to the harbour, local officials have said.

French swimmer Florent Manaudou will be the first torch bearer in Marseille. His sister Laure was the second torch bearer in ancient Olympia, where the flame was lit on April 16.

Ten thousand torchbearers will then carry the flame across 64 French territories.

It will travel through more than 450 towns and cities, and dozens of tourist attractions during its 12,000-kilometre (7,500-mile) journey through mainland France and overseas French territories in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific.

It will then reach Paris and be the centre piece of the hugely imaginative and new approach to the Games opening ceremony.

Instead of the traditional approach of parading through the athletics stadium at the start of the Games, teams are set to sail down the Seine on a flotilla of boats in front of up to 500,000 spectators, including people watching from nearby buildings.

The torch harks back to the ancient Olympics when a sacred flame burned throughout the Games. The tradition was revived in 1936 for the Berlin Games.

Greece on Friday had handed over the Olympic flame of the 2024 Games, at a ceremony, to Estanguet.

Hellenic Olympic Committee chairman Spyros Capralos handed the torch to Estanguet at the Panathenaic Stadium, where the Olympics were held in 1896.

Estanguet said the goal for Paris was to organise “spectacular but also more responsible Games, which will contribute towards a more inclusive society.”

Organisers want to ensure “the biggest event in the world plays an accelerating role in addressing the crucial questions of our time,” said Estanguet, a member of France’s Athens 2004 Olympics team who won gold in the slalom canoe event.

A duo of French champions, Beijing 2022 ice dance gold medallist Gabriella Papadakis and former swimmer Beatrice Hess, one of the most successful Paralympians in history, carried the flame during the final relay leg into the Panathenaic Stadium.

Nana Mouskouri, the 89-year-old Greek singer with a worldwide following, sang the French and Greek anthems at the ceremony.

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