Paris closed the monumental Games in a big way, with absolute conviction, with a great atmosphere. The once again great sporting celebrations and the closing ceremony put a golden end to 16 wonderful days. Because games consume everything that surrounds them: landscapes, life, history, culture, proletarian figures and sports athletes, people, works, memories. Paris will endure for its success, as the closing ceremony will be remembered for the star appearance of Tom Cruise descending from the dome of the Stade de France and snatching the Olympic flag with the mission of bringing it to Los Angeles in real Ethan Hunt style.
The first big moment of the ceremony is dedicated to the main characters of the Games, the parade of athletes. The standard bearers at one door, the rest at the other, with all the champions with their medals hanging around their necks. María Pérez and Jordan Díaz as Spanish standard bearers, two golden athletes of the most universal sport. And with 9,000 athletes on the track, Queen’s ‘We are the Champions’ began to play. A great sports anthem. It took eight years to have a full parade again, the wait is long. At the first Games in 1896, champions received their medals at the closing ceremony and marathon runners Sifan Hassan, Tigist Assefa and Hellen Obiri received theirs in the middle of the ceremony to symbolize the first 100% equality game between boys and girls.
The Saint-Denis track is transformed into a scenario set in the future, with an interstellar traveler who arrives on Earth and finds the Games destroyed and tries to revive them, recreating what Baron Pierre de Coubertin did. With the Delphic hymn to Apollo – the oldest of ancient Greece – playing in the background, fragments of the bulletin of the inaugural congress of the 1894 Games were read and the Olympic rings were raised to the sky, with epic music.
71,500 spectators filled the Stade de France, a theater with a 2,400 square meter stage and a performance that mobilized more than 9,000 people. The stadium became a macro concert for a collective celebration. A mix of French and American music.
The Los Angeles 2028 Games made their stellar appearance with photos taken from its streets and beaches, with quadruple Olympic champion Michael Johnson doing the flag relay and with its most universal artists like Billie Eilish or Snoop Dogg doing an improvised concert in front of the Pacific coast. The city in charge of organizing the Games always has 15 minutes during the final ceremony to present a preview of what will be seen in four years. Leon Marchand, symbol of the French victory with his four golds, the most successful athlete of this edition, took the Olympic flame in the Tuileries and brought it to the last part of the ceremony to carry out the symbolic execution while the public shouted “Marchand, Marchand” . He is a central figure at the beginning of the ceremony and the farewell. His popularity will return in LA 2028
Source: La Verdad
I’m Jason Root, a professional writer working with Today Times Live, the premier news website. I specialize in sports writing, covering the biggest stories in the world of athletics. With an eye for detail and a passion for storytelling, I provide engaging and informative articles that capture the key elements of any event or issue. My work has been featured on numerous respected websites and publications around the world.
