Snoop Dogg stars as flame sails into Paris for opening ceremony

The Olympic flame cruised into Paris on Friday on a diesel-belching tug, the torch held aloft by its white-clad bearer, having earlier been carried by US rapper Snoop Dogg, as it passed under the peripherique motorway.

The 68th stage of the relay since its arrival in Marseille on May 8 was entitled the "Epilogue".

The torch had passed through Paris before, on July 14, the Bastille Day national holiday, and July 15, before circling the suburbs, starting its final journey in Saint-Denis on Friday.

Earlier in the morning, the flame had visited the athletes' village where International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach and former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon took turns as torchbearers.

Phones in hand and wearing broad smiles, athletes from all over the world filmed the torch.

"It's a moment that gives you goosebumps, it's beautiful to see," said Judith Vandermeiren, a Belgian field hockey player.

The torch passed through Saint-Denis, where rapper MC Solaar, who is from the region, carried the flame, and stopped at the Stade de France where Snoop Dogg took his turn.

The flame made its way down the Canal Saint-Denis, handed off to a beaming 17-year-old schoolboy from the area.

It then boarded the first of a series of canal boats, to cruise past the concrete factories and housing blocks to Paris accompanied by a crowd of spectators, security, officials and even canoeists in fancy dress.

"It doesn't happen very often. It's exceptional," said Nathalie, who did not give her surname, from the suburb of Aubervilliers as she stood on a bridge awaiting the flame.

The relay toured the Parc de la Villette, turned into the Parc des Nations housing the 'clubhouses' of a string of countries, dominated by France in the Grande Halle, and including Brazil in a circus tent, and Mongolia in yurts.

The relay then took to the water and cruised down the Canal de l'Ourcq towards the Canal Saint-Martin and the Seine.