Paris Olympics: Bell rung by champions to be placed in Notre-Dame Cathedral

The marriage of something old and something new at the Paris Games includes a bell that rings for Olympic champions, and will be part of a new page in history for the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral.

Athletes who land gold or set records at the Stade de France get a chance to ring a victory bell. The French site was the venue for rugby sevens in the early days of the Games, is now the athletics venue and will eventually be the stage for the closing ceremony on Sunday.

Some have done so with characteristic enthusiasm, like U.S. sprinter Noah Lyles when he won gold at the 100m in a photo finish race earlier this week, while Canada’s Ethan Katzberg was draped in the maple leaf when he rang in his win in hammer throw.

The bell was made in Normandy at a foundry called Cornille Havard, and is engraved with the inscription “Paris 2024”.

Once the Olympics and Paralympics wrap up, it will be hoisted into one the bell towers of Notre-Dame.

Noah Lyles, of the U.S., celebrates after winning the men’s 100-meters final by ringing the bell at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, in Saint-Denis, France. (Matthias Schrader / AP Photo)

A group of Canadian fans have been admiring the majestic Cathedral and are embracing the concept. They are in Paris after winning a spot in the mass participation marathon called “Marathon Pour Tous”, which will follow the same course as the Olympic marathons.

“To know it is going to be part of history in this city, that the athletes can come back to this city with their grandchildren and say, ‘that bell, I rang that at the Olympics’, it makes their victory even more part of the legacy,” says Susan from Ottawa. “That has got to be cool. I am thinking of our hammer throwers and thinking, ‘Yes!'”

This comes in the aftermath of the fire that devastated the monument five years ago.

On the evening of April 15, 2019, a fire swept through Notre-Dame. The images of flames engulfing the cornerstone of the Parisian landscape shocked the French and the world.

“I though it would be the end for Notre-Dame,” said sixty-two-year-old Albert Cohen, who rides his bicycle past the cathedral everyday.

Four hundred firefighters answered the call on the day of the fire, and managed to save parts of the building, though much of the wooden roof caved in and the spire collapsed.

The spire of Notre Dame de Paris cathedral is protected by scaffolding, Friday, Dec. 8, 2023 in Paris. (Christophe Ena / AP Photo, Pool)

The painstaking work of restoring the cathedral to its former glory has been underway since.

“It is about doing something new with something old,” said rector Olivier Ribadeau Dumas in May when a new cross was installed atop Notre-Dame. “Symbolically, it means for me, that nothing is ever really lost. Thanks to the convictions of many and the work of an enormous amount of people, this cathedral can reopen soon.”

The grand reopening of the Notre-Dame is expected on December 8. The bell that is now at the Stade de France will then be part of a new page of history.

Lucie Rusni, a tourist from Germany who worked as a volunteer at the Vancouver Games in 2010, stopped by Notre-Dame to see the progress of the work today.

“The bell is going to be installed here, this is emotional,” she said. “Very emotional, really, very nice.”

The 2024 Olympic organizers say that with the bell, victories will ring out across Paris long after the games are done.