Greig Leach

It was a touching moment when two previous French Olympic medalists, Teddy Riner and Marie-Jose Perec took the flame from the oldest surviving French Olympian Charles Coste before lighting the cauldron. The cauldron is in fact a hot air balloon lit by the Olympic flame flying above the Touilleres in the center of Paris. That is the site of the first balloon flight roughly two hundred and fifty years ago. It should be noted since this is a cycling blog, Coste is a French cyclist.