Paris Olympics memorable moments: Simone Biles was the star but the spotlight reached many faces

SAINT-DENIS, France: Aiming to prove that surpassing Paris is not an impossible task, Los Angeles on Sunday launched a Tom Cruise, Grammy winner Billie Eilish and other stars as it took over the 2028 Olympic hosting duties from the French capital . , which ended its 2024 Games exactly as they began – with joy and brilliance.
Paris was bringing the curtain down on an Olympic Games that brought stunning sport to the heart of the capital, breathing new life into an Olympic brand battered by the difficulties of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and the soulless spirit of the COVID-hit event in Tokyo.
Even the Parisians were carried away by the Olympic fervor.
“We wanted to dream. We caught Leon Marchand,” Paris 2024 boss Tony Estanguet told the crowd, referring to the French swimmer who won four swimming golds.
“Overnight Paris became a party and France found itself. From a country of grumblers, we became a country of crazy fans.”

Following in the footsteps of Paris promises to be a challenge: it made spectacular use of its cityscape for its first Games in 100 years, with the Eiffel Tower and other iconic monuments becoming Olympic stars in their own right as they served as backdrops and medal venues. -winning facts.

But the City of Angeles has shown that it, too, has ace up its sleeve, just like the City of Light.
Cruise – in character as Ethan Hunt – wowed by descending from the top of the stadium to the electric guitar riffs of 'Mission Impossible'. Once her feet were back on the ground — and after shaking hands with the cheering athletes — she took the Olympic flag from star gymnast Simone Biles, strapped it to the back of a motorcycle and roared out of the arena.

The message that whetted the appetite was clear: Los Angeles 2028 promises to be an eye-opener too.
Still, this was mostly Paris night – her opportunity for one last party. And what a party it was.

The closing ceremony capped an extraordinary two-and-a-half weeks of Olympic sport and excitement with a raucous, star-studded spectacle at France's national stadium, mixing wild celebration with a somber appeal for peace from IOC president Thomas Bach.

“It was a sensational Olympics from start to finish,” said Bach.
After announcing his intention to leave office next year, Bach also struck a darker note as he called for “a culture of peace” in a war-torn world.
“We know 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.”
Then came another gear shift, courtesy of Cruise.
In a pre-recorded segment after being lowered on a live rope from the dizzying heights of the rooftop, Cruise rode his bike past the Eiffel Tower, into an airplane and then skydived over the Hollywood Hills. Three circles were added to the O's of the famous Hollywood sign to create five intertwined Olympic rings.
The thousands of athletes who danced and sang all night cheered her on – and the artistic performance that celebrated Olympic themes, complete with fireworks.
Their enthusiasm roared as their crowds rushed the stage at one point. Stadium announcements in French and English urged them to double back. Some stayed, creating a makeshift pit around Grammy-winning French pop-rock band Phoenix as they performed, before security and volunteers cleared the stage.
Several time zones away, Eilish, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, rapper Snoop Dogg — sporting Olympic ring pants after being a popular mainstay at the Paris Games — along with longtime collaborator Dr. Dre continued party with shows in Los Angeles. “Beach in Venice.
Each is a native of California, including HER, who sang the US national anthem live at the Stade de France, packed with more than 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 swimming trunks he wore to win four golds, was shown on giant screens gathering the Olympic flame from the Tuileries Gardens in Paris.
After loud chants of “Léon, Léon” from the audience, Marchand then reappeared at the end of the performance, extinguishing the flame. The Paris Games are over.
But they will return.
“We are calling on the youth of the world to gather in four years in Los Angeles,” said Bach.

205 countries, 9,000 athletes

As a soft pink sunset gave way to night, the athletes marched into the stadium for the first time waving the flags of their 205 countries and territories – a demonstration 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 concluded, the 9,000 expected athletes – many wearing their shiny medals – and team employees filled the arena, dancing and cheering to loud beats.

Unlike Tokyo in 2021, where the Games were pushed back a year by the COVID-19 pandemic and largely devoid of fans, the athletes and the more than 70,000 spectators in the Paris arena celebrated with abandon, singing together as the Queen's anthem “We Are the Champions” was heard. Several French athletes surfed in the crowd. Members of the American team jumped up and down in their Ralph Lauren jackets.
The national stadium, France's largest, was one of the targets of Daesh suicide bombers, who killed 130 people in and around Paris on November 13, 2015. The joy and celebrations that swept Paris during the Games, while what Marchand and other French athletes messed up. up to 64 medals – 16 of them gold – marked a milestone in the city's recovery from that night of terror.
The closing ceremony saw the awarding of the final medals – each embedded with a piece of the Eiffel Tower. According to the first Olympics to target gender parity, it all went to the women – gold, silver and bronze medalists from the women's marathon earlier on Sunday.
The women's marathon took the place of the men's race, which traditionally closed the previous Games. The switch was part of efforts in Paris to shine the Olympic spotlight more brightly on women's sporting achievements. Paris was also where women made their Olympic debut at the 1900 Games.

Team USA once again topped the leaderboard with 126 total 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 over competing in Tokyo in 2021.
In contrast to Paris's rainy but exuberant opening ceremony, which took place along the Seine River in the heart of the city, the artistic side of the closing ceremony took a more sober approach, with space and Olympic themes.
A figure encased in gold fell like a spider from the sky into a dark world of smoke and swirling stars. Olympic symbols were celebrated, including the flag of Greece, the birthplace of the ancient Games, and the five intertwined Olympic rings, illuminated in white in the arena where tens of thousands of lights shone like fireflies.

“Culture of Peace”
The fortnight of sporting drama saw China and the United States top the medal standings going into the final event.
Echoing the heartbreak handed to France by the United States in the men's basketball final, the U.S. women's basketball team overcame France in a stunning one-point loss to win its 40th gold medal and first place in the medal standings.

As the world emerged from the COVID pandemic in 2022, Paris promised an “Olympic light at the end of the tunnel” and set the scene for a worry-free Games as they returned to Europe for the first time in over a decade.
But Russia's war in Ukraine on Europe's eastern flank, the threat of Israel's military campaign in Gaza erupting into a wider conflict in the Middle East, and France's state of heightened security alert all loomed as the Games began.
International Committee President Thomas Bach greeted the athletes as he declared the Games over.
“All this time, you lived quietly together under the same roof in the Olympic Village. You hugged each other,” Bach said. “You have respected each other, even though your countries are divided by war and conflict. You have created a culture of peace.”

Big bar for LA
The French had a new golden boy to celebrate as swimmer Marchand became king of the pool before French judoka Teddy Riner reigned supreme as he won his fifth Olympic gold medal.
Simone Biles has put her tortuous Tokyo mess behind her, making a long-awaited Olympic comeback in front of a star-studded crowd. She became the most decorated gymnast in the world and walked away with three more gold medals for her trophy cabinet.
Breaking made its Olympic debut – to some derision on social media – while 3×3 basketball, sport climbing, skateboarding and surfing made their second appearances.
The IOC will be relieved that no major scandals have erupted, although it has had to contend with some controversy.
A fiery doping dispute involving Chinese athletes has hung over the Olympic swimming meet, where the United States faced the biggest challenge to its dominance in decades.
A storm over gender eligibility has hit women's boxing competition, exposing the toxic relationship between the IOC and a widely discredited International Boxing Association.
Meanwhile, a $1.5 billion cleanup of the Seine has rewarded Paris with the sight of triathlon and marathon swimmers racing in the river through central Paris without a wave of illness following — even as bacteria levels have forced some workouts to be cancelled.
But for all the sporting triumph and drama, the biggest star of the show for many was the City of Light itself and the fabulous backdrop it lent to much of the competition.
“They have a high enough bar. A lot of work to do,” said James Rutledge, 59, a former banker wearing a Team USA jersey outside the Stade de France. “The Next Hollywood? It's something to play with.”