Stefanos Ntouskos poses with his gold medal after winning the men's single sculls final at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, July 30, 2021. (Xinhua/Du Xiaoyi)
ATHENS, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Greek Olympic medalist Stefanos Ntouskos will be the first torchbearer for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC) said during a press conference on Wednesday in Athens.
The athlete who won the gold in rowing in the 2020 Tokyo Games will start the torch relay on April 16, while the Olympic flame lighting ceremony will take place that day at ancient Olympia, in western Greece, the birthplace of the Olympic Games.
The last torchbearer on Greek soil will be Giannis Fountoulis, the captain of Greece's men's national water polo team, who took silver at Tokyo 2020. He will be the last torchbearer inside the Panathenaic stadium in Athens during the Olympic Flame handover ceremony on April 26.
At the end of this ceremony at the stadium, where the first modern Olympics were held in 1896, the President of the Hellenic Olympic Committee, Spyros Capralos, will pass it on to the Paris 2024 organizing committee.
"What is even important for us are the very special messages that the Olympic flame carries with it," Capralos said in a statement.
"Especially at a time when there are wars in many parts of the world. At such a time, it is peace, cooperation, noble rivalry, the ideals of Olympism that can rekindle the flame of hope," he said. ■