Fire and fury: The Olympic torch relay

PARIS: The Olympic torch has been into space, deep underwater and even scaled Mount Everest.

Along the way it has had its fair share of mishaps.

As Paris prepares to unveil the route for the 2024 torch relay, AFP looks back at some of the headline moments of the event, first run ahead of the Berlin Olympics in 1936.

One of the most memorable stunts during the torch relay came in 1956 ahead of the Melbourne Games when an Australian student named Barry Larkin fooled crowds with a homemade torch topped by burning underpants.

Larkin managed to get his torch - a wooden chair leg crowned with a metal pudding container holding the fiery underwear - up the stairs of Sydney's Town Hall and deliver it to city mayor Pat Hills, cheered on by tens of thousands.

The university student even arranged his own fake motorcycle escort but genuine police outriders soon caught up with him.

A 17-year-old jaguar named Juma was paraded in chains for photos as the torch passed through the Amazon in northern Brazil ahead of the Rio Games in 2016.

But Juma escaped its handlers and four tranquilliser darts failed to slow it down.

After it threatened a vet, soldiers opened fire on the jaguar and shot dead the animal, a symbol of the Amazon.

The climax of the relay - the lighting of the Olympic cauldron - has provided some memorable moments such as Muhammad Ali trembling due to suffering from Parkinson's disease, and an archer's blazing arrow in Barcelona.

But things have not always gone smoothly. The most grisly blunder came in Seoul in 1988 when dozens of doves released earlier in the opening ceremony alighted on the cauldron.

When the flame was lit, several of the birds were incinerated, to the horror of watching spectators.

The torch relay has been the target