Thought For The Day – Wednesday 17^th April 2024

It was wonderful to host our guests from France at the end of last term.

Thank you, as ever, to the Languages Department and all host students and families.

This coming summer will be a special moment for France, and the world, with the Olympics and Paralympics being held in Paris.

The Olympic Torch was lit yesterday by performers dressed as priestesses in a ceremony held amid the ruins of ancient Olympia, in Greece, the birthplace of the Games 2,800 years ago.

Ancient Greece, of course, was very influential on the world in so many areas, and that includes the Olympics.

Emerging from the ruins yesterday, where she gave a message of  light and peace “for all peoples of the world”, the Greek actor Mary Mina, playing the role of high priestess,  then handed the flame to Stefanos Douskos, a gold medalist in rowing from Greece,  the first of hundreds of torchbearers who will carry it on an 11-day journey around Greece.

The Olympic Flame and Torch will then be taken to France and Paris.

Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, said yesterday: “This torch is a message of peace, a message of friendship between peoples.”