The Paris Olympics 2024 has come to an end with a spectacular closing ceremony in the Stade de France celebrating the athletes and their feats over the two-week event.

The ceremony also offered a glimpse of what could be in store in 2028 when Los Angeles will play host.

Paris brought down the curtain on an Olympic Games that brought scintillating sport to the heart of the French capital, breathing new life into an Olympic brand hurt by the difficulties of Rio de Janeiro’s 2016 Games and Tokyo’s COVID-hit event.

Even Parisians were carried away by the Olympic fervour.

“We wanted to dream. We got Leon Marchand,” Paris 2024 chief Tony Estanguet told the crowd, referring to the French swimmer who took home four golds and won a legion of new fans.

“Together, we lived the games as never seen before, a whale even took part in the the surfing finals in Haiti. From one day to the next, time stopped and a whole country vibrated,” Estanguet said.

“France rediscovered itself. From one day to the next, the whole of France became Olympic,” he added.

He also mentioned that the Olympic Games saw “the most marriage proposals ever”.

‘Culture of peace’

COVID-19 forced Tokyo to delay the Olympics by a year until 2021 and then stage a much restricted event.

Paris promised “light at the end of the tunnel” and a more carefree games.

But Russia’s war in Ukraine on Europe’s eastern flank, Israel’s war on Gaza, and France’s heightened state of alert over security loomed large as the games finally got under way.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach saluted the athletes as he declared the Games closed.

“You showed us what greatness human beings are capable of,” Bach said as he took to the stage. “You lived together, you embraced each other even though some countries are divided and at war. You lived in peace.

Thomas Bach

IOC President Thomas Bach speaks during the closing ceremony for the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games [Rob Schumacher/USA Today Sports]
“Thank you for making us believe in a better world for everyone.

“We know that the Olympic Games cannot create peace but the Olympic Games can create a culture of peace that inspires the world.

“This is why I call on everyone who shares this Olympic spirit: Let us live this culture of peace every single day.”

The Olympic flag heads to LA
From the City of Light to the City of Angels and Hollywood. As Paris wound up its games, the Olympic flag was officially handed over to Los Angeles, which will host the 2028 Olympics.

LA Mayor Karen Bass gave the Olympic flag to US gymnast Simone Biles to hold as H E R sang the US national anthem live at the Stade de France, crammed with more than 70,000 people.

Mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass and Simone Biles of United States during the closing ceremony. 

Tom Cruise – channelling his Mission: Impossible Ethan Hunt persona – jumped into the arena from the roof of Stade de France.

Emerging through a crowd of selfie-taking athletes, Cruise headed to the stage to collect the Olympic flag before leaving the stadium with the flag flying from the back of his motorbike.

Screens then cut to Cruise racing through the streets of Paris before riding up the ramp of a waiting plane.

The action then cut to LA where Cruise was shown leaping from a plane and parachuting to the Hollywood sign overlooking the city where he pinned the Olympic rings.

A celebration of humanity
About 9,000 athletes danced and sang the night away during the closing ceremony, which was billed as a celebration of humanity and the unifying power of sport.

On the stadium’s giant screens, Billie Eilish, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, rapper Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre kept the party going in an prerecorded show from a California beach.

Each is a California native, including H E R.

The stadium crowd roared as French swimmer Leon Marchand first collected the Olympic flame from the Tuileries Garden in central Paris.

Reappearing later in the stadium to spectators’ chants of “Leon, Leon”, Marchand then blew out the flame signifying the end of the 2024 games.

French singer, Yseult, dressed in Dior Haute Couture, closed the event with a rendition of the Frank Sinatra classic My Way.

Finally, sporting memories

The French had a new golden boy to celebrate with Marchand emerging as the king of the pool, before French judoka Teddy Riner reigned supreme as he claimed his fifth Olympic gold medal.

Simone Biles put the misery of Tokyo behind her, making a long-awaited Olympic return in front of a star-studded crowd. She arrived the world’s most decorated gymnast and left with a further three gold medals for her trophy cabinet.

Sports climbing, 3×3 basketball, skateboarding and surfing made their second appearances with the surf competition taking place in Tahiti. Breaking made its Olympic debut – to some derision on social media – but may not appear again. It is not on the list for LA.

The IOC will be relieved that no major scandals erupted, although it did have to grapple with some controversies including a storm around gender eligibility that hit the women’s boxing competition, revealing tensions between the IOC and a widely discredited International Boxing Association.

In medals, the US team again topped the medal table, with 126 in all; 40 of them gold. China, also won 40 golds, but managed only 27 silvers. Still, it was the country’s best performance in an overseas Olympics since it began competing in 1984.

Japan also turned in a strong performance after meeting their lofty goal of 20 gold medals and coming in third on the medals table.

Source: Al Jazeera

BDST: 1503 HRS, AUG 12, 2024
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