It was a dreamlike, science fiction-inspired light-show spectacular that closed with Tom Cruise flying through the air from the stadium roof and whisking the Olympic flag off to Los Angeles. Paris closed its record-breakingly successful Olympic Games on Sunday night with a stunt-filled final ceremony that began with a mysterious, golden intergalactic traveller wandering through a gloomy, barren futuristic landscape, tasked with resurrecting the Olympic spirit. Ghostly dancers and acrobats – some of whom were fire-service gymnasts – descended from the Stade de France stadium roof and leaped on to giant Olympic rings while the Swiss musician Alain Roche performed Hymn to Apollo floating in the air playing a vertically suspended piano.
The French singer Yseult gave a breathtaking performance of My Way, a nod to French-US relations as a French song that was rearranged in English for Frank Sinatra. Paris said goodbye to its Olympics with a message about the importance of protecting the spirit of the games in an uncertain world riven by conflict. The dramatic, pyrotechnic show was a fitting riposte to that broke with tradition by taking place along the Seine two weeks earlier.
From that moment, the Paris Games had seen record ticket sales and TV viewing figures, and even a historic number of marriage proposals among athletes. “Humanity is beautiful when it comes together,” said the theatre and opera director Thomas Jolly of his stadium show about celebrating “respect and .