Latest News

Kent Prepares to Welcome Olympic Torch

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) have confirmed that the Olympic Flame will arrive in Canterbury on Thursday 19 July 2023 as part of a 70-day journey around the British Isles leading up to the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Excitement will be high in Canterbury as the Olympic Flame is scheduled to pass through the city just one week before its arrival at the Olympic Stadium in east London for the opening ceremony on 27 July 2012. The flame will spend longer in Kent than any other county in the United Kingdom, arriving on July 17 and leaving three days later. Torchbearers will carry the Olympic flame through 37 towns and villages in Kent. It will arrive in Tunbridge Wells on July 17, before heading to Sussex. On July 18 the torch will return to Kent passing through Hamstreet in Ashford, Hythe, Sandgate, Folkestone and Dover. The following day it will visit Deal, Sholden, Sandwich, Great Stonar, Cliffsend, St Lawrence, Ramsgate, Broadstairs, St Peters, Cliftonville, Margate, Westgate-on-Sea, Birchington, Upstreet, Sturry, Canterbury, Thanington, Faversham, Challock, Harrietsham and finish in Maidstone. On July 20 the Flame will pass through Medway, Gravesend and up to its last stop in Sevenoaks.

During its tour of Kent, there will be two evening celebration stops in Dover and Maidstone as well as lunchtime stops at two Kent locations, eight photo stops and two breakfast stops. Canterbury Council has confirmed that a 10-minute photo opportunity will be held in the afternoon July 17 at the Cathedral Precincts. Carried across the UK by 8,000 Torchbearers, the flame will travel an estimated 8,000 miles around the UK and pass through 1,018 communities, giving everyone a chance to be part of 2012 Olympics history.

Lord Sebastian Coe, Chair of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) said: “I’m delighted that the Olympic Torch Relay will take the 2012 Games at almost every corner of the UK and that we have achieved our ambition to take the Flame to within an hour’s journey of 95% of the population. Now everyone is invited to plan their welcome and find out where they can go to be part of this historic occasion. The Olympic Games are coming to you as the Olympic Flame gives our people and places their moment to shine.”

The Olympic flame is due to arrive in the UK from Greece on 18 May 2023 and the relay will start on 19 May at Land’s End, Cornwall.

Tweet

Comments