More than 200 torchbearers had the honour of carrying the torch the day before the start of the thirty-third modernOlympic Games, creating an increasingly lively atmosphere as Paris 2024 draws nearer.

The "young district" of Seine-Saint-Denis is the youngest, most multicultural and cosmopolitan in France, with almost 130 nationalities represented. It is a driving force in the fields of art, culture, sport, social projects and solidarity.

Seine-Saint-Denis is also a centre for sport, with ten sports disciplines, including four Paralympic disciplines. Events will be held at the Olympic Aquatic Centre (for artistic swimming, diving and water polo), the Stade de France (athletics, para-athletics and rugby sevens), the Le Bourget climbing wall, the Arena Paris Nord (boxing, modern pentathlon, sitting volleyball), the Parc Georges Valbon (para-marathon) and Clichy-sous-Bois (para-cycling).

The relay festivities began in Noisy-le-Grand with a visit to the Arènes de Picasso complex and Neuilly-sur-Marne, in particular in front of the Sainte-Baudile church. The Olympic torch relay passed through Tremblay-en-France and its 70 hectares of woodland, the Beaumonts park in Montreuil and the Jean-Moulin-Les Guilands park in Bagnolet, before following the Canal de l'Ourcq from Sevran to Bobigny.

It then moved on to Romainville, with its tower and National Dance Centre, Aubervilliers, the centre of La Courneuve, and finally the Holocaust Memorial in Drancy, an essential place of mediation, transmission and remembrance.

The Olympic torch relay continued on to Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, home of the National Archives, Stains, where it passed the Grand Mosque, and then to Parc Georges Valbon, where the celebration site was set up.

In La Courneuve, French boxer Sarah Ourahmoune passed the Olympic torch to Lilian Thuram, a former star of the 1998 World Cup-winning French football team, for the legendary 'torch kiss'. Thuram then lit the cauldron at the celebration site in Parc Georges Valbon, La Courneuve.

Place Salvador Allende in Bagnolet was the epicentre for 24 torchbearers who celebrated dance as part of a collective relay. Together, they recounted the evolution of hip-hop and breakdance culture over the last 40 years, with 4 performances representing the last four decades, where the younger generations handed the Olympic torch to the older generations as a tribute. Personalities such as Pascal-Blaise Ondzie, Massamba Djibalene, Aktuel Force and Enrique Estevez were present on the final day of the extensive relay, which spanned not only France but the world for several weeks.

The second collective relay, organised by the French Boxing Federation, took place in Aubervilliers at Boxing Beat, a club run by the famous trainer Saïd Bennajem, who took part in the Barcelona Games and was the captain of this collective relay, where Sarah Ourahmoune, who would become one of the most important personalities on the final day of the Olympic relay, began her boxing career.

It was a long day in Seine-Saint-Denis, full of famous French sports personalities, including Cumba Diallo, a member of the French women's rugby team, Antoinette Nana Djimou, two-time European heptathlon champion, Jean-Marc Mormeck, six-time world boxing champion, Yvan Wouandji, silver medallist in blind football at the London Paralympic Games, Diandra Tchatchouang, bronze medallist at the Tokyo Games with the French women's basketball team, and Gwladys Epangue, a taekwondo athlete who won a bronze medal at Beijing 2008.

Alongside these athletes, the Olympic torch was carried by celebrities popular with the French public, such as director Alice Diop, winner of numerous awards for her film Saint-Omer (including the César for Best First Film), actress and director Sabrina Ouazani, violinist Benjamin Ducasse and rap star Gazo, who will perform a concert later in the evening.

The final relay was led by two emblematic figures of French sport: boxer Sarah Ourahmoune, silver medallist at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, 2008 world champion, three-time European champion and ten-time French champion, and Lilian Thuram, 1998 World Cup winner and 2000 European champion, who played 142 international matches during the golden era of French football.

Thuram, who was born on 1 January 1972 in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, had the honour of receiving the torch from Ourahmoune before lighting the cauldron at the Parc Georges Valbon.

After the quarter-finals of the Paris 2024 Olympic Rugby Sevens, an extraordinary relay took place on the roof of the Stade de France in the Paris night with two iconic torchbearers: World 4x100m relay champion (2003) and Athens 2004 Olympic bronze medallist Muriel Hurtis and former French rugby captain and federation vice-president Abdelatif Benazzi closed the final day of the Olympic Torch Relay ahead of the day eagerly awaited by sports fans around the world.

This Friday, the Olympic Torch Relay enters the home straight. Its final leg will take the Olympic torch from Saint-Denis to Paris for the lighting of the cauldron at theOpening Ceremony, marking the official start of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.