The Paris Olympics cauldron is a ring of fire carried by a hot-air balloon.
The identity of the person who would light the Olympic cauldron for the Paris Games on Friday night (spoiler alert: Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner) was up in the air … and so, it turns out, was the cauldron itself: a ring of fire carried by a hot-air balloon.
Instead of the usual ground-bound cauldron used at most Summer and Winter Games, the special edition for the Paris Olympics is intended as a tribute to the first ride taken in a hydrogen-filled gas balloon — made in 1783 by two of that balloon’s French inventors.
