Story of an unusual project: the arrival of the Olympic Flame in Marseille
Story of an unusual project: the arrival of the Olympic Flame in Marseille
On 8 May 2024, the Olympic Flame came ashore from the three-masted Belem onto a floating athletics track in the heart of the Old Port of Marseille, in front of a crowd of nearly 200,000 people.
For almost a year, our teams had been hard at work preparing for this unique event.
After a structure trial in autumn 2023, the ceremony’s organiser entrusted MarineFloor Europe with building the 1,500 m² floating structure that would become the floating athletics track used by the first torchbearers of the Olympic flame in France.
The scale of the project was colossal. For our part alone, alongside 17 other trades, it took nearly 350 hours of work, 9 semi-trailers of equipment, 6,000 EcoSystem cubes, construction machinery, 1,500 m² of decking, several thousand screws, … and countless meetings, drawings, calculation notes and adaptations, …
During the few days of preparation, the Old Port turned into an anthill, with a non-stop ballet of electricians, stage riggers, pyrotechnicians, decorators and carpenters… from dawn to dusk, making the task even more urgent and complex.
But a MarineFloor team always meets its objectives, and on the agreed date we made way for the other craftspeople in charge of dressing, sound, finishing…
What a show! Magnificent!
We are very proud to have taken part in this unique event, to have taken up the challenge of this exceptional structure, to have once again created a custom pontoon for the Belem, a boat dear to our hearts, and to have met the needs of a top-level event organisation!
Relive these few days through three dedicated videos:
- A look back at the installation by our teams
- The time-lapse of the installation from the roof of the Hôtel Carré on the Old Port
- The compilation of the best images of the Belem’s arrival and of the flame
For any floating project, exceptional or not, you can count on us!
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