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The end of the 2024 Olympics is fast approaching, and the latest Games have offered plenty of memorable events and moments that will go down in Olympic folklore.
From one of the closest 100m finals of all time to the USA’s stunning comeback in the basketball semi-finals, Paris 2024 has been full of unique moments.
Every Olympics has it’s own touches of local culture to help create these moments, and Paris is no different, from beautiful settings near the Eiffel Tower to the large bell that sits near the finish line of the now-famous purple track of the Stade de France.
In the athletics, victories and world records have been immortalised with the help of this bell, which is rung by gold medal winners after their victories.
Noah Lyles, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Keely Hodgkinson and more have all rung the bell as part of a mini-tradition in Paris. And the bell, engraved with the words ‘Paris 2024’, will soon hang in Notre-Dame Cathedral after the Games.
It will be placed in one of the cathedral’s bell towers, which are still being refurbished as part of the works to repair the iconic Parisian landmark after it suffered extensive damage during a fire in 2019.
The means that the bell, which was made in Normandy, will continue to be heard in the French capital long after the Games are over – just another, smaller legacy that the Olympics will leave over the City of Light.
“In a way, Paris 2024 is helping to rebuild Notre Dame,” said Pierre-Andre Lacout, a manager at the Stade de France, in a statement to NBC.
“A part of the Games and the Olympic spirit will remain in Notre-Dame for life,” he added.
Notre-Dame is scheduled to re-open to the public on 8 December, 2024, more than five years after the fire that damaged much of the roof and spire.
