French pageantry met American razzle-dazzle in a spectacular farewell to the Olympics that featured a golden alien, a pianist dangling from the sky and Hollywood star Tom Cruise leaping from the roof of the Stade de France. After opening the Games on the Seine and in front of the Eiffel Tower, Paris ended them with a spectacular light display and high-octane concert that turned the stadium into a party for thousands of exuberant, exhausted and emotional athletes. But Los Angeles stole the show during the handover to 2028 organisers, when Cruise rappelled off the roof of the stadium in a brown leather jacket, attached the Olympic flag to a motorbike and drove through a parting sea of star-struck athletes.
As he closed the Games, Tony Estanguet, the President of Paris 2024, described them as 19 days of “heart-racing, head-spinning, screaming, crying, crazy love,” and evoked the French phrase “coup de foudre”, which means a kind of love that hits hard. “One day, life is normal, the next it feels magical,” he said. “It’s what we have felt since July 24.
” Even those who have had a tough Olympics felt the joy of the evening. Breaker Rachael Gunn, known as Raygun, who was trolled for her performance in the breaking event, arrived at the ceremony on the shoulders of a rower as her teammates formed a guard of honour. She performed her now-signature kangaroo move.
Algerian woman Imane Khelif, whose Olympic boxing campaign was dogged by an ugly debate over whether she .