She was allowed to gather precisely 2,024 grams of soil from the site where the Olympic Flame is set to be kindled for Paris 2024.

"This is a unique moment in the history of the Games," Gomis said.

"Beyond connecting Olympia and Greece with Paris and France, we want to open the Games wide through this sacred soil that I will have the honour of bringing back to France." 

The Côte-d'Or region became the latest confirmed Torch Relay destination this week as Paris 2024 continues the planning process.

A party from Paris 2024 visited the archaeological site to find out more about the ceremony at which the Olympic Flame is set to be ignited, sometime early in 2024. They are guaranteed a ceremony of beauty and emotion designed to invoke antiquity.

A visit to the ancient precincts of Olympia is an affecting moment for anyone with feelings for the Olympic Movement. When International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach inaugurated the Olympic Laurel, the prize itself was fashioned from stone found in the grounds of the archaeological site, to invest it with a special lustre.

In 1988, veteran Korean marathon runner Sohn Kee-chung arrived as part of Seoul's Olympic delegation to see the lighting of their Flame and was so overcome that he fell to his knees and kissed the ground.

Sohn won his Olympic gold medal in 1936, the same year the Olympic Torch Relay was introduced.

It is why the 2024 Relay will be the first to have Paris as its final destination, even though the city had staged the Olympics in 1900 and 1924.

The first time the Flame visited French soil was en route to London in 1948. It had travelled overland day and night through Italy and Switzerland in the week before the Games were to begin.

It crossed the French border near Perly half an hour after midnight.

Among the bearers was 23-year-old cross country runner Daniel Rebiffé, a soldier in the Garde républicaine.

"We were only accompanied by four motor cyclists and an official from the British Organising Committee in a Rolls Royce with a safety Flame," Rebiffé told La Nouvelle République newspaper in 2016.

"There was a real feeling of community amongst the people who greeted us even in the middle of the night," he remembered.

The Relay crossed briefly into Luxembourg before returning to France.

When it arrived at the port of Calais, a naval guard of honour stood to attention as the final runner ran up the gangplank to pass the Torch to Commodore Douglas Neame of HMS Bicester who had been a hurdler at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam.

The Torch was fastened to the bridge as it made its way across the English Channel and then to Wembley for the Opening Ceremony.

It was to be almost 20 years before the Flame would return to France.

The 1968 Winter Olympics had been awarded to Grenoble.

At the 1967 IOC session in Teheran, organisers revealed plans to take the Flame across France. It was claimed to be the most expansive yet seen for a Winter Games.

The lighting was scheduled for December 1967, but this seemed in jeopardy after civil conflict erupted in Greece in the days immediately beforehand.

In fact the ceremony did go ahead but it was the uncertain December weather which caused problems of its own. Organisers were forced to conduct it indoors at Olympia's archaeological museum and not for the first time, a Flame kindled during rehearsals was used.

It was flown to Orly Airport in Paris where French National Olympic Committee Secretary Alain Danet and IOC vice-president Comte Jean de Beaumont greeted it which was described as "imposing", despite rainy weather.

Jean Vuarnet, the 1960 men’s downhill champion, and 1956 marathon gold medallist Alain Mimoun were chosen to begin the domestic Relay.

Skiers in traditional costumes also lined the courtyard outside the Hotel de Ville to welcome the Flame.

Some 5,000 Torchbearers carried it on a route including Chamonix, the first Winter Olympic host in 1924.

"The flame was received with great enthusiasm, was especially successful for the bearers, the escorts, sporting circles, the spectators and particularly the young people, press and television," the official report of the Games recorded.

In a journey of over 7,000 kilometres, "the bearers never failed in the severest weather conditions," officials insisted.

At Seysses in the Haute-Garonne, a peal of bells rang by order of the Mayor as the Relay arrived.

In Marseilles, a swimmer carried it across the bay.

In La Plagne, local sports chief Pierre Leroux made a parachute jump with the Torch from above the resort. It was reported that the Flame was extinguished during the descent but re-lit as soon as Leroux landed.

"The Olympic Flame, pledge of peace and friendship, the most ancient symbol of honour and courage, will arrive in the arena in a few moments, and will make Grenoble one of the high places of sport and culture," Organising Committee President Albert Michallon predicted at the Opening Ceremony.

"The Olympic Flame has arrived in France," IOC President Avery Brundage declared. 

"May its light cut through the clouds of discord, and the misunderstanding of the true Olympic philosophy and light the way to a less materialistic but happier and more peaceful world," he added.

The 1964 figure skating silver medallist Alain Calmat was chosen to carry the Flame up 96 stairs to light the Cauldron. A microphone attached to his chest relayed the sound of his heartbeat.

The Flame did not return to France until late 1991. Albertville, in the region of Savoie, had been chosen to stage the 1992 Winter Games.

Organising Committee co-Presidents Jean-Claude Killy and Michel Barnier carried it from Greece to Paris on Concorde.

There, runners carried it along the Champs-Élysées where some 200,000 watched it pass.

The 57-day journey across France was organised in conjunction with the French postal services and the itinerary included Chamonix and Grenoble.

The cavalcade visited Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s childhood home at Mirville, where a local runner arrived to the strains of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ode to Joy and was greeted by Coubertin’s grand-nephew Geoffroy de Navacelle.

In all, 10,000 carried the Torch from 100,000 original applicants.

Finally after almost two months, the Flame arrived in Albertville.

In one of the most bizarre Olympic Opening Ceremonies yet staged, organisers insisted that stadium announcers spoke in rather stilted rhyming couplets.

"The very last minute we're still in suspense… who holds the Olympian Flame?

"Here he comes now, to light up this event, Michel Platini is his name," intoned the announcer.

Platini was joined by six-year-old François-Cyrille Grange who ultimately lit the Cauldron.

These were incidentally Games at which Russian and Ukrainian competitors competed alongside one another in a "Unified Team", because the Soviet Union itself had ceased to exist at the turn of 1992.

In 1994, Paris celebrated the 100th anniversary of the historic Congress at the Sorbonne where the decision to revive the Olympic Games for the modern era had taken place,

Double 400 metres hurdles gold medallist Edwin Moses began a Relay which included Mimoun and Colette Besson, 400m gold medallist in 1968, as part of a group of some thirty Olympians.

The final cauldron was lit by Marie-José Pérec, 400m gold medallist in 1992 and destined to win again in 1996 when she also won 200m gold.

Pérec returned to Paris with Torch in hand in 10 years later for the Athens 2004 Relay to "Unite the World".

World 400m hurdles champion Stéphane Diagana descended on a zipwire from the Eiffel Tower as part of the festivities.

In 2006, the Turin Winter Olympic Flame visited Chamonix, Grenoble and Albertville in homage to previous hosts.

In Grenoble, Marielle Goitschel, who had won slalom gold in 1968, was greeted by Calmat.

Paris was included on the itinerary of the international journey of the Beijing 2008 Relay, but the enduring image was of protests against human rights abuses in China which brought the leg to a premature end.

Even a planned reception for the Beijing 2008 delegation was cancelled.

"The Chinese officials decided they would not stop here because they were upset by Parisian citizens expressing their support for human rights. It is their responsibility," Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë explained at the time.

The violence in Paris, preceded by similar scenes in London, persuaded the IOC to discourage future international Torch Relays.

In a touch of irony, the 2008 Relay had been promoted as the "Journey of Harmony".

May this be genuinely demonstrated in 2024.