Then the carnival begins and the vast majority give themselves over to the joy, excitement and fun of it all. On a sultry night in the French capital, the outgoing hosts staged a farewell that only sporadically evoked the same uplifting emotions as the sport.
At times the show lost its thread, especially when disco music blared from loudspeakers and a huge karaoke party started to distract from the line-up of around 9,000 athletes and officials around the covered athletics track.
A show featuring acrobats dressed head to toe in grey drew criticism on social media for its funereal nature and did not meet with overwhelming approval from live audiences.
At three and a half hours, it also seemed far too long to me, but this city wanted to hold the Olympics in its arms for as long as possible.
Eventually, the baton was passed to Los Angeles. When it comes to conducting a baton handoff, the Paris organizers could teach the U.S. men’s 4×100-meter relay team a thing or two.
LA Mayor Karen Bass joyfully waved the Olympic flag after becoming the first black mayor to receive it during the closing ceremony. The US national anthem was sung by California artist HER after we had heard an orchestral version of the “Marseillaise” hours earlier.
Hollywood star Cruise came down from the roof of the stadium to grab the flag in one go. After it was delivered to California “as if by magic,” a trio of American Olympians stood front and center after French swimming sensation Leon Marchand opened the show.
The flag was brought to Venice Beach via Kate Courtney’s mountain bike, the nimble feet that won Michael Johnson four Olympic gold medals and – in a nod to the Games’ determination to win the hearts of young people – Jagger Eaton’s skateboard.
Now it is officially the turn of the American city, which will take on three-time host Paris, to confront the eternal Olympic opponents and hopefully silence them.
What wouldn’t LA 2028 officials give to have a homegrown superstar thrill the Games the way Marchand did at this edition, winning four gold medals in swimming in the first week.
It was Marchand, dressed in a smart black suit, who appeared unannounced on the giant screen of the Stade de France as he collected the Olympic lantern from the Jardin des Tuileries. What does it cost for an American track and field star to come to the Hollywood Hills in four years to collect the lantern?
In the middle of the ceremony, with everyone still pumped up from loudly belting out the Games’ unofficial anthem, “Freed from Desire,” the provincial crowd serenaded their 64-medal-winning team with the chorus of “Allez Les Bleus.”
Next, we heard the Dutch national anthem as Sifan Hassan stood atop the podium after winning the women’s marathon. These games were all about equality. The marathon course was inspired by the Women’s March of Versailles in 1789, and men and women were equally represented among the 10,500 Olympic athletes.
With sustainability being another tenet of the 2024 Games, only three new venues have been built. LA has already begun competing after declaring that it would host its Olympics entirely in existing venues.
From Hong Kong’s point of view, it was a pity that almost all of the city’s 35 athletes had left Paris long before the closing party. Almost automatically, the flag was carried by cyclist Ceci Lee Sze-wing and taekwondo athlete Lo Wai-fung.
Neither of them shone in Paris, but Hong Kong won four medals. Two gold medals put the athletes in 37th place out of 206 delegations in the medal table. How the city’s sports authorities plan to find successors for Cheung Ka-long, Vivian Kong Man-wai and Siobhan Haughey will be revealed tomorrow.
American rapper Snoop Dogg ended the entertainment at this Paris show via video from LA as people filed toward the exits. “Let it Roll,” he sang in one of his hits this year. In the case of the Olympics, despite the sadness in Paris when the Games officially ended, we are rolling into the City of Angels.
