So, au revoir then, the Games of the 33rd Olympiad. The statistics alone are mind-boggling: 206 nations have competed over 16 days in 329 events from 32 different sports. The world has engaged in more than two weeks of collective oohing and aahing, as gymnast Simone Biles shone once again , heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson at last picked up the medal that has eluded her for so long and French swimmer Léon Marchand took the words of “La Marseillaise” to heart as he marchons-ed to five medals, four of them gold, in the pool.
After an in-Seine Opening Ceremony that drew a decidedly mixed reaction , the jamboree came to a close in the Stade de France with a spectacle whose script had reportedly been revised “umpteen” times. This was so as to avoid causing the sort of offence that a perceived parody of the Last Supper featuring drag queens did at the start. The weather provided the perfect arc of pathetic fallacy for these Games: it tipped it down during the Opening Ceremony and then the sun shone eternally thereafter.
The closing night jamboree started in the Tuileries Gardens, where a sultry mademoiselle sang, appropriately, “Sous Les Ciels de Paris (Under the Skies of Paris)”, a number made famous by, bien sur, Edith Piaf. Marchand, now looking remarkably chlorine-free, took the Olympic flame on a very long walk. “That was the last we ever saw of Léon Marchand,” said BBC commentator Andrew Cotter wryly, sounding giddily demob happy.
During an eternity o.