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

Saint-Denis, France: To prove that topping Paris is not mission impossible, Los Angeles on Sunday took over the duties of hosting the 2028 Olympics from the French capital, with skydiving Tom Cruise, Grammy winner Billie Eilish and other stars. , which closed its 2024 Games as it began — with joy and panache.
Paris was bringing the curtain down on the Olympic Games, bringing the glitzy sport to the heart of the capital, breathing new life into an Olympic brand battered by the hardships of the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro and the soulless spirit of Tokyo's Covid-19 outbreak.
Parisians were also enthralled by the excitement of the Olympics.
“We wanted to dream. We got Leon Marchand,” Paris 2024 chief Tony Estanguet told the crowd, referring to the French swimmer who won four swimming golds.
“From one day to the next Paris became a party and France found itself. From a country of gossipers, we became a country of frenzied fans.”

Following in Paris' footsteps 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 the backdrop and venue for the medals. – Winning achievements.

But the City of Angeles showed that it also has something up its sleeve, like the City of Light.
Cruise — in his Ethan Hunt persona — wailed as the electric guitar descended from the top of the stadium to “Mission Impossible” riffs. Once his feet were back on the ground – and shaking hands with the enthralled athletes – he took the Olympic flag from star gymnast Simone Biles, placed it on the back of a motorbike and thundered off the field.

The hunger-hating message was clear: Los Angeles 2028 also promises to be an eye-opener.
Still, it was largely a Parisian night – its occasion for one last party. And what a party it was.

The closing ceremony mixed unbridled celebration with IOC President Thomas Bach's defiant call for peace, a star-studded show at France's national stadium after two and a half weeks of extraordinary and emotionally charged Olympic Games.

“These were sensational Olympic Games from start to finish,” Bach said.
After announcing his intention to leave office the following year, Bach made even more serious remarks when he appealed for a “culture of peace” in a war-torn world.
“We know that the Olympic Games cannot create peace, but the Olympic Games can create a culture of peace that inspires the world,” he said. “Let us live this culture of peace every day.”
Then came another change of gear, courtesy of Cruise.
In a pre-recorded segment, Cruise rode his bike past the Eiffel Tower, onto a plane and then skydive over the Hollywood Hills, after rappelling down a rope from the dizzying heights of the rooftop. Three circles were added to the O' of the famous Hollywood sign to create the five Olympic rings.
It was cheered on by thousands of athletes dancing and singing into the night — and an artistic show celebrating Olympic themes, complete with fireworks.
In no time, their enthusiasm was shattered as their crowd took to the stage. Stadium announcements in French and English urged them to double back. Some created an impromptu mosh pit around Grammy-winning French pop-rock band Phoenix before security and volunteers cleared the stage.
Several time zones away, Eilish, Red Hot Chili Peppers, rapper Snoop Dogg — wearing pants emblazoned with Olympic rings after becoming a popular mainstay at the Paris Games — along with his longtime collaborator Dr. Dre kept the party going with a performance in Los Angeles. ' Venice Beach.
Each is a California native, including HER, who sang the US national anthem live at the Stade de France in front of more than 70,000 people.

At the start of the show, the stadium crowd roared as French swimmer Leon Marchand, wearing a suit and tie instead of swim trunks, was shown on a giant screen collecting the Olympic flame from the Tuileries Gardens. Paris.
To loud “Leon, Leon,” from the audience, Marchand then appeared at the end of the show, extinguishing the flames. The Paris Games are over.
But they will return.
“I call upon the youth of the world to gather in Los Angeles four years from now,” Bach declared.

205 countries, 9,000 players

As a delicate 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 show of global unity in a world beset by global tension and conflict, including Ukraine and Gaza. The stadium screens carried the words, “United for Peace.”
After the 329 medal events ended, an expected 9,000 athletes – many wearing their shiny medals – and team staff filled the arena, dancing and cheering to the thumping beats.

Unlike in Tokyo in 2021, where the Games were pushed back a year by the COVID-19 pandemic and largely eliminated, fans, players and more than 70,000 spectators at the Paris Arena celebrated by singing together as the Queen's anthem. Champions” blared. Several French athletes crowd-surfed. Members of the American team jumped up and down in their Ralph Lauren jackets.
France's largest national stadium was the target of IS gunmen and suicide bombers who killed 130 people in and around Paris on November 13, 2015. Marchand and other French athletes cheered and celebrated in Paris during the Games. The 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 final medals awarded – each embedded with a piece of the Eiffel Tower. Fittingly for the first Olympics for gender equality, they all went to the women – the women's marathon gold, silver and bronze medalists on Sunday.
The women's marathon took the place of the men's race which was traditionally held off the previous games. The switch was part of efforts to shine the Olympic spotlight on women's sporting achievements in Paris. Paris was also where women made their first Olympic debut, at the 1900 Games.

The American team again tops the medal table, with 126 in all and 40 of them gold. The three were courtesy of gymnast Simone Biles, who made a brilliant return to the top of the Olympic podium in Tokyo in 2021 by prioritizing her mental health over competition.
In contrast to Paris' rain-soaked but rousing opening ceremony that took place along the Seine River in the heart of the city, the artistic portion of the closing ceremony took a more subdued approach, with space-age and Olympic themes.
A golden shrouded figure descended like a spider from the sky into a dark world of smoke and swirling stars. The Olympic symbols, the flag of Greece, the birthplace of the ancient games, and the five spaced Olympic rings, were lit in white in the arena where thousands of lights twinkled like fireflies.

'Culture of Peace'
Two weeks of sporting drama saw China and the United States go down in the final event for the top spot on the medal table.
Echoing the heartbreak the United States gave France in the men's basketball final, the U.S. women's basketball team defeated France by one point for its 40th gold medal and atop the medal table.

As the world emerges from the Covid pandemic in 2022, Paris has promised to provide a platform for the Olympic “light at the end of the tunnel” and the Games to return to Europe for the first time in more than a decade.
But in eastern Europe, with Russia's war in Ukraine, the threat of Israel's military campaign in Gaza looming as a wider conflict in the Middle East, and France's heightened state of security alert, the games are beginning to begin.
Thomas Bach, president of the international committee, greeted the players as he declared the game off.
“During this time, you lived together peacefully under one roof in the Olympic Village. You embraced each other,” Bach said. “You respected each other, even if your countries were divided by war and conflict. You created a culture of peace.

High bar for LA
Swimming Marchand was the new golden boy to celebrate emerging as king of the pool before French judo's Teddy Rainer reigned supreme as he claimed his fifth Olympic gold medal.
Simone Biles put her Tokyo woes behind her, making her long-awaited Olympic return in front of a star-studded crowd. She became the world's most decorated gymnast and left 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 there have been no major scandals, although it has faced some controversies.
The United States faced the biggest challenge to its rule in decades after a doping row involving Chinese athletes at an Olympic swimming meet.
The storm surrounding gender qualification has affected women's boxing competition, revealing a toxic relationship between the IOC and the widely discredited International Boxing Federation.
Meanwhile, a $1.5 billion cleanup of the Seine rewarded Paris with the optics of triathlon and marathon swimmers competing on the river through central Paris, without a wave of illness — even as bacteria levels forced the cancellation of some training.
But for all the sporting triumphs and drama, for many the biggest star of the show was the City of Light itself and the spectacular backdrop it provided for so much competition.
“They've got 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 Stade de France. “Next Hollywood? It's something to play for.”