Lengthy distance runner Clementine Mukandanga and bicycle owner Eric Manizabayo have been named flagbearers of Staff Rwanda on the glamourous opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Video games which formally kick off in Paris, France, on Friday, July 26 and run by means of Sunday, August 11.
The duo is a part of eight athletes–five girls and three men–representing Rwanda at Paris 2024 Olympics.
Mukandanga is the one Rwandan athlete within the Olympic Staff who certified for the Paris 2024 Video games. She achieved the required “Minima” time of two:26:50 on the 39 Firenze Marathon in December 2023 with a time of two:25:54, the fourth quickest within the occasion’s historical past and a private finest, bettering on her earlier document set in Florence in 2022.
She is going to compete within the full marathon slated for August 11 at Hôtel de Ville and Les Invalides.
On the age of 38, she is the oldest within the Rwanda Olympic Staff.
In the meantime, Manizabayo made it to Paris on a wildcard. He’s one among three cyclists within the Rwandan Olympic workforce for Paris alongside Djazilla Mwamikazi and Diane Ingabire.
Manizabayo, who’s making his debut on the Olympic Video games, will compete on August 3 within the Highway Race which is able to happen at Pont d’ Iéna.
Total, moreover Mukandanga and Manizabayo, the opposite athletes representing Rwanda on the 2024 Olympic Video games in Paris embody girls cyclists Diane Ingabire and Djazilla Mwamikazi, athletics star Yves Nimubona, swimmers Peyre Mitilla Oscar Cyusa and Lidwine Umuhoza Uwase and fencer Tufaha Uwihoreye.
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A ceremony exterior a stadium
For the primary time within the historical past of the Olympic Summer season Video games, the opening ceremony is not going to happen in a stadium. Paris 2024 is breaking new floor by bringing sports activities into the town and the identical might be true of the opening ceremony, set to be held within the coronary heart of the town alongside its predominant artery: The Seine.
Taking over a brand new guise, the parade of athletes might be held on the Seine river with boats for every nationwide delegation.
These boats might be geared up with cameras to permit tv and on-line viewers to see the athletes up shut. Winding their method from east to west, the ten,500 athletes will cross by means of the centre of Paris, the general taking part in discipline for the Video games on which these opponents will show their sporting prowess over the subsequent 16 days.
The parade will come to the tip of its 6-kilometre route in entrance of the Trocadéro, the place the remaining components of Olympic protocol and ultimate reveals will happen.