SAINT-DENIS, France (AP) — Paris is closing out two and a half extraordinary weeks of Olympic sports and emotion with a boisterous, star-studded show in France’s national stadium, handing over hosting duties for the Summer Games to the next city in line: Los Angeles in 2028.
In a display of Hollywood showmanship, Tom Cruise descended from the top of the French stadium to the “Mission Impossible” theme song, shaking hands with athletes, before taking the Olympic flag from star gymnast Simone Biles, putting it on the back of motorcycle and driving out of the stadium.
In a prerecorded ride past the Eiffel Tower, Cruise drove his bike onto a plane and then skydived out of it over the Hollywood Hills. He then three rings to the O's of the famed Hollywood sign to create five interlaced Olympic rings.
It was just one of the highlights of the closing ceremony that put a final flourish to Paris’ first Games in a century, with an artistic show that celebrated Olympic themes, golden fireworks and thousands of athletes partying into the night.
In their enthusiasm, crowds of athletes rushed the stage during a highlight video from the Games, and stadium announcements in French and English urged them to double back. Some of them stayed, surrounding Grammy-winning French pop-rock band Phoenix as they played, before security and volunteers cleared the stage.
For Los Angeles, topping Paris could be mission impossible. The French capital made spectacular use of its cityscape for its first Games in 100 years. The Eiffel Tower and other iconic monuments became Olympic stars in their own right, serving as backdrops and in some cases venues for competitions.
But LA was bringing star power of its own: singer Billie Eilish, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, rapper and Paris Olympics mainstay Snoop Dogg — plus longtime collaborator Dr. Dre — performed at Venice Beach as part of the handover from the City of Light to the City of Angels.
Each of the music artists is a California native, including H.E.R., who sang the U.S. national anthem live at the Stade de France, which hosted Olympic track and field and rugby sevens. The audience was expected to top 70,000 people.
At the start of the show, the stadium crowd roared as French swimmer Léon Marchand, dressed in a suit and tie instead of the swim trunks he wore to win four golds, was shown on the giant screens collecting the Olympic flame from the Tuileries Gardens in Paris.
There, the Olympic cauldron — powered by electricity instead of fossil fuels — had lit up the French capital for the duration of the Games, thrilling crowds by rising into the skies on a balloon every night.
As a delicate pink sunset gave way to night, athletes marched into the stadium waving the flags of their 205 countries and territories — a display of global unity in a world gripped by global tensions and conflicts, including those in Ukraine and Gaza. The stadium screens carried the words, “Together, united for peace.”
With the 329 medal events finished, the expected 9,000 athletes — many wearing their shiny medals — and team staffers filled the arena, dancing and cheering to thumping beats.
Unlike in Tokyo in 2021, where the Games were pushed back a year by the COVID-19 pandemic and largely stripped of fans, athletes and the more than 70,000 spectators at the Paris arena celebrated with abandon, singing together as Queen’s anthem “We Are the Champions” blared. Multiple French athletes crowd-surfed. U.S. team members jumped up and down in their Ralph Lauren jackets.
In a speech, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach — who sat with French President Emmanuel Macron during the show — said the Games “can create a cultural peace that inspires the world,” noting that the athletes “respected each other even if your countries are divided by conflict.”
The national stadium, France's largest, was one of the targets of Islamic State gunmen and suicide bombers who killed 130 people in and around Paris on Nov. 13, 2015. The joy and celebrations that swept Paris during the Games as Marchand and other French athletes racked up 64 medals — 16 of them gold — marked a major watershed in the city's recovery from that night of terror.
The closing ceremony saw the awarding of the last medals — each embedded with a chunk of the Eiffel Tower. Fittingly for the first Olympics that aimed for gender parity, they all went to women — the gold, silver and bronze medalists from the women’s marathon earlier Sunday.
The women's marathon took the spot of the men’s race that traditionally closed out previous Games. The switch was part of efforts in Paris to make the Olympic spotlight shine more brightly on the sporting feats of women. Paris was also where women first made their Olympic debut, at the Games of 1900.
The U.S. team again topped the medal table, with 126 in all and 40 of them gold. Three were courtesy of gymnast Simone Biles, who made a resounding return to the top of the Olympic podium after prioritizing her mental health instead of competition in Tokyo in 2021.
Unlike Paris' rain-drenched but exuberant opening ceremony that played out along the Seine River in the heart of city, the closing ceremony’s artistic portion took a more sober approach, with space-age and Olympic themes.
A golden-shrouded figure dropped spider-like from the skies into a darkened world of smoke and swirling stars. Olympic symbols were celebrated, including the flag of Greece, birthplace of the ancient Games, and the five interlaced Olympic rings, lit up in white in the arena where tens of thousands of lights glittered like fireflies.
Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of both shows, had faced blowback for portions of the opening ceremony, which were assailed by former U.S. President Donald Trump, French bishops and others who felt they poked fun at Christianity.
Jolly and other members of his creative team filed police complaints over death threats and online vitriol targeting them and some of opening show’s performers.
Critics jumped to the conclusion that a segment featuring drag queens and a DJ who is also an LGBTQ+ icon had parodied “The Last Supper,” Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting showing Jesus Christ.
Jolly and his team repeatedly insisted that was never their intention and got backing from Macron, who described himself as “outraged and sad” by the backlash against them.
___
AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
John Leicester, The Associated Press
