On Friday, July 26th, French athletes Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner lit the Cauldron of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at the end of the Opening Ceremony. Created by French designer Mathieu Lehanneur, the Paris 2024 Cauldron, located in the Jardin des Tuileries on the grounds of the Louvre, is a giant ring of “fire” topped by a monumental balloon that takes to the skies over Paris. For the first time in the history of the Games, the Olympic Flame will shine without fuel. 

The 100% electric flame without fuel is created by use of water and light. Positioned on the ground during the day, the Cauldron takes off into the Paris sky at sunset each evening. The 30-metre-high cauldron with a 7-metre-diameter ring of fire rises more than 60 meters above the ground, from sunset until 2am every night. A meticulous combination of a cloud of mist and beams of light, the Olympic Flame flickers with electricity as its sole source of energy. The 7 meter diameter of the ring of fire, incorporates 40 LED spotlights to illuminate the cloud created by 200 high-pressure misting nozzles. The true technical feat is the success of guaranteeing the flow of electricity and water 60 meters above the ground, when the Cauldron is in flight.

“This absolutely unique Cauldron represents all the spirit I wanted to give to the Olympic and Paralympic objects. Light, magical and unifying, it will be a beacon in the night and a sun within reach during the day. The fire that burns in it will be made of light and water, like a cool oasis in the heart of summer. I created the Torch, the Relay cauldron and the Olympic Cauldron as three chapters in the same story. The Cauldron is the epilogue and the ultimate symbol of that story.” – Mathieu Lehanneur, Designer of the Cauldron for the Olympic Games Paris 2024

In the Jardin des Tuileries, in the heart of the Louvre estate, the Cauldron of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 is also part of the great history of ballooning in Paris. It was in Paris, in 1783, that the very first flight in the history of humanity took place. The scientist Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes took to the skies on the basis of research by the Montgolfier brothers. Also in France, while the Montgolfiers were developing their hot-air balloon rather empirically, the physicist Jacques Charles invented the gas balloon, filled with hydrogen. A more powerful, safer and more sophisticated balloon, it took off a few days after Pilâtre de Rozier’s flight, from the same spot in the Jardin des Tuileries, in front of 400,000 astonished people. A hundred years after the first hot-air balloon adventure, in 1878, it was once again at the Tuileries that a French engineer, Henri Giffard, invented the captive balloon, made up of a gas balloon and a steam winch, which was to be a resounding success.

Both monumental and light, it is visible nightly from hundreds of meters away, for all to see. Having chosen to install the Olympic Cauldron in the Jardin des Tuileries, puts it into fabulous alignment of the Louvre and its Pyramid, the La Concorde obelisk, and the Champs-Elysées dominated by the Arc de Triomphe. 

This content originally appeared on PLSN.com.