SAINT-DENIS, FRANCE: Proving that it’s not impossible to surpass Paris, Los Angeles mobilized skydiving Tom Cruise, Grammy winner Billie Eilish and other stars on Sunday to hand over the 2028 Olympics to the French capital, which just as it began the 2024 Games, ended them with joy and pride.
Paris brought the Olympics to a close with a spectacular display of sport in the heart of the capital, breathing new life into a brand marred by the woes of Rio de Janeiro 2016 and the soullessness of the COVID-19-ravaged Tokyo Games.
Even Parisians were caught up in Olympic fever.
“We wanted to dream. We got Leon Marchand,” Paris 2024 CEO Tony Estange told the crowd, referring to the French swimmer who won four gold medals in swimming.
“One day Paris became a party and France found its place. From a country of complainers, we became a country of enthusiastic fans.”
It would be difficult to follow in Paris’ footsteps. As the city hosted the Olympics for the first time in 100 years, it made great use of its cityscape, becoming an Olympic star in its own right as the Eiffel Tower and other iconic monuments served as backdrops and locations for the medal-winning athletes’ achievements.
But the city of Angeles has shown that, like the City of Light, it also has a formidable weapon.
Cruz descended from the top of the stadium in his Ethan Hunt persona, wowed the crowd with his electric guitar riff on “Mission Impossible.” After landing and shaking hands with enthusiastic athletes, he received the Olympic flag from star gymnast Simone Biles, strapped it to the back of his motorcycle, and roared out of the stadium.
The enticing message was clear: there are high hopes that the 2028 Los Angeles Games will be equally eye-opening.
Still, this was a Parisian night, a chance for one last party. And it was a really great party.
The Closing Ceremony was a spectacular, star-studded show at France's national stadium, capping off two and a half weeks of Olympic sport and emotion, complete with a solemn appeal for peace and unbridled celebration from IOC President Thomas Bach.
“It was a sensational Olympics from beginning to end,” Bach said.
Bach's announcement that he would step down next year added to the somber mood as he called for a “culture of peace” in a world torn apart by war.
“We know that the Olympics cannot create peace, but the Olympics can create a culture of peace that inspires the world,” he said. “Let’s live this culture of peace every day.”
And thanks to the cruise, there's another gear change.
In a pre-recorded video, Cruise rappelled live from the dizzying heights of the rooftop by rope, then rode a bike past the Eiffel Tower, boarded a plane and skydived over the Hollywood Hills. Five interlaced Olympic rings were created by adding three circles to the O of the famous Hollywood sign.
Thousands of athletes danced and sang all night long, cheering wildly on an art show celebrating the Olympic theme. Fireworks were also spectacular.
Their enthusiasm exploded as the crowd surged toward the stage. Stadium announcements in French and English urged them to turn back. Some stayed behind and formed an impromptu mosh pit while the Grammy-winning French pop-rock band Phoenix played, while security and volunteers cleared the stage.
Across time zones, the party continued with a performance at Venice Beach in Los Angeles by Eilish, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Paris Olympics mainstay Snoop Dogg (whose pants feature Olympic rings), and longtime collaborator Dr. Dre.
Both are from California, and one of them, HER, sang the US national anthem live in front of a crowd of over 70,000 people at the Stade de France.
French swimmer Leon Marchand, left, holds the lantern containing the Olympic flame with IOC President Thomas Bach at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France, Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024. (AP)
As the show began, the stadium crowd roared as giant screens showed French swimmer Léon Marchand, shunning the swimsuit he won four gold medals in and wearing a suit and tie, collecting the Olympic flame in the Tuileries Garden in Paris.
As the audience roared “Leon, Leon,” Marchand returned at the end of the show and extinguished the fireworks. The Paris Games were over.
But they will come back.
Bach declared, “I call upon the youth of the world to gather in Los Angeles in four years.”
205 countries, 9,000 athletes
As the delicate pink sunset turned to night, the athletes marched onto the pitch first, waving the flags of 205 countries and territories, a show of global unity in a world gripped by tensions and conflicts, including in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip. The stadium screens displayed the words, “Together, Unite for Peace.”
After 329 medal events, 9,000 athletes and team staff, many of whom were expected to wear glittering medals, filled the stadium, dancing and cheering to the thumping beats.
Unlike the 2021 Tokyo Games, where the COVID-19 pandemic forced a one-year postponement and the 70,000-plus spectators who gathered in the Paris stadium were all but absent, the French national anthem “We Are the Champions” rang out as they sang together and celebrated. Several French athletes crowd-surfed. Team USA members jumped up and down in Ralph Lauren jackets.
France’s largest national stadium was one of the targets of Daesh militants and suicide bombers who killed 130 people in and around Paris on November 13, 2015. The jubilation and celebration that swept Paris during the Olympics, as Marchand and other French athletes won 64 medals, 16 of them gold, marked a major watershed moment in the city’s recovery from that night of terror.
The final medals were awarded at the closing ceremony, each featuring a piece of the Eiffel Tower. In keeping with the first Olympics aimed at gender equality, all the medals went to women, who won gold, silver and bronze in the women’s marathon on Sunday.
The women's marathon took the place of the men's race, which traditionally closed the previous Games. The move was part of an effort in Paris to shine the Olympic spotlight more brightly on women's sporting achievements. Paris was also the site of the first Olympic debut for women, in 1900.
Team USA again topped the medal standings, with 126 total medals, 40 of them gold. Three were won by gymnast Simone Biles, who returned to the top of the Olympic podium after prioritizing her mental health over competition in Tokyo 2021.
Unlike the rain-soaked, extravagant opening ceremony in Paris along the Seine, the artistic portion of the closing ceremony took a more subdued approach, with a focus on the space age and the Olympics.
A golden figure fell from the sky like a spider into a dark world of swirling smoke and stars. Olympic symbols were celebrated, including the Greek flag, the birthplace of the ancient games, and the five intertwined Olympic rings, while tens of thousands of lights glowed white in the stadium, twinkling like fireflies.
'Culture of Peace'
In a two-week sports drama, China and the United States battled for first place in the medal standings until the very end.
Just as the U.S. suffered a crushing defeat to France in the men's basketball final, the U.S. women's basketball team also suffered a shocking one-point defeat to France, taking home their 40th gold medal and first place in the medal standings.
French President Emmanuel Macron (top, third from right) and IOC President Thomas Bach greet each other during the Closing Ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France, on August 11, 2024. (AP)
As the world emerges from the coronavirus pandemic in 2022, Paris has promised the Olympics as “the light at the end of the tunnel” and a return to Europe for the first time in a decade to provide a stage for a worry-free Olympics.
But the stakes are high as the game begins, with concerns rising that the conflict in the Middle East will escalate further as Russia invades Ukraine in eastern Europe, Israel launches a military operation in the Gaza Strip and France steps up its security presence.
International Committee President Thomas Bach declared the Olympic Games closed and paid tribute to the athletes.
“All this time, you lived together in peace under one roof in the Olympic Village. You embraced each other,” Bach said. “You respected each other even when your country was divided by war and conflict. You created a culture of peace.”
LA's High Standards
France had a new golden boy to celebrate as swimmer Marchand emerged as king of the pool, while French judoka Teddy Riner claimed the top spot by winning his fifth Olympic gold.
Simone Biles made her long-awaited Olympic comeback in front of a star-studded crowd, leaving behind her topsy-turvy Tokyo performance. She emerged as the world's most decorated gymnast and walked away with three more gold medals in her trophy cabinet.
Breaking made its Olympic debut amid mockery on social media, while 3×3 basketball, sport climbing, skateboarding and surfing were the second.
The IOC has had to deal with some controversies, but will be relieved that no major scandals have broken out.
The doping scandal involving Chinese athletes has erupted at Olympic swimming events, leaving the United States facing its biggest challenge in decades.
The women's boxing event has seen a storm of controversy over gender eligibility, exposing the toxic relationship between the IOC and the widely discredited International Boxing Federation.
Meanwhile, a $1.5 billion clean-up of the Seine River has seen triathletes and marathon swimmers compete in the river that runs through central Paris, and while some training sessions have been canceled due to high bacteria levels, there have been no waves of illness.
But despite all the sporting triumphs and drama, the show's biggest star for many was the City of Light itself and the stunning backdrop that provided so much for the competition.
“They have a high bar to reach. There's a lot of work to be done,” said James Rutledge, 59, a former banker wearing a Team USA T-shirt outside the French stadium. “Next, Hollywood? That's something to play around with.”
