Spectacular farewell to the Paris Olympics

There are few more powerful images to close the Olympic Games than the Stade de France track, which was transformed yesterday into a grandiloquent mosaic full of allusions to French culture; a world as luminous, as incredible, as the cauldron that rose over the Tuileries Garden every evening. After two and a half weeks of stories that moved thousands with their sporting values, Paris lowered the curtain on a unique stage.

GALLERY: Paris bids farewell to its Olympics; passes the baton to Los Angeles 2024

The idea of ​​taking the competitions out of the stadiums and bringing them close to their most iconic places, such as the Eiffel Tower, the Place de la Concorde or the Seine, was daring, but at the same time it highlighted their light and thus entrusted Los Angeles – for the third time the venue of the event, after 1932 and 1984 – with a kind of mission impossible for the 2028 edition. The French capital paid a final tribute to women with the first-ever awards ceremony for the medallists of the women’s marathon, which had a route inspired by the March on Versailles in 1789.

GALLERY: Memorable moments from Paris 2024

When accepting her gold medal, Ethiopian Sifan Hassan, a naturalized Dutch citizen, wore a red hijab (a veil that covers the head and chest of Muslim women) in the presence of President Emmanuel Macron, despite the fact that the host country had banned its use by female athletes. I feel like I’m dreamingdeclared the Olympic champion, surrounded by more than 71,500 people in the stands.

From the origin of the Games with the oracle of Delphi to a post-apocalyptic world, the artistic director of the opening, Thomas Jolly, said goodbye to the Games with an immense symbolic charge about the importance of Olympic sport and its meaning of union and brotherhood. “Despite the tensions around the world, they came to make the Olympic Games a reality.” City of Light “will shine like never before,” declared the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach. Their performances were incredible, they contributed to making these Games the beginning of a new era, a culture of peace..

In the image, representatives of the 109 athletes who made up the Mexican delegation. Photo Ap

Upon leaving the Tuileries Garden, French swimmer Leon Marchand, star of the event with four gold medals in individual events, kicked off the ceremony by carrying the Olympic flame to the stadium in Saint-Denis, illuminating Paris for the last time with its flame.

Once on the track, he carried the fire to centre stage so that Bach and athletes representing each region of the world – his compatriot Teddy Riner, Cuba’s Mijaín López, Australia’s Emma McKeon, China’s Sun Yingsha, Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge and Cameroonian-born Cindy Ngamba, the first monarch in the history of the refugee team – could extinguish its glow with a small candle.

Humanity is a beautiful thing when it comes togetherMacron exclaimed in his speech at the opening of the Games. And the Games, with their 205 delegations, proved that this is true.

In the colorful parade of national delegations, different athletes proudly showed off the medals they won in Paris. During their journey, the small group of Mexican representatives, which was reduced due to the fact that several athletes returned to the country, was overflowing with joy wearing the traditional charro hat and wrestler masks. The standard-bearers were boxer Marco Verde, who won a silver medal in the 71 kilograms category, and Nuria Diosdado, from artistic swimming.

Above these lines, the time traveler, a character who led the closing ceremony to tell the story of the past and future of the Olympic Games. Photo Afp

A traveler from the future

Represented by the Victory of Samothrace, this deity took center stage as a golden, interplanetary traveler from the future rebuilt the embers of his society with elements of the joust. Thus, he transformed the script of this ceremony into a utopia looking toward 2028. But before heading toward the show In Hollywood, with the Hollywood sign adapted to the Games, the closing ceremony featured a series of formal speeches with Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 Organising Committee, and Thomas Bach, head of the IOC. There was also a video paying tribute to the great moments of the competitions.

At the conclusion of Bach’s speech, a youth choir and the Divertimento symphony orchestra performed the official Olympic anthem on an area of ​​2,400 square meters.

This was the prelude to the ceremony in which Anne Hidalgo, mayor of the French capital, passed the Olympic flag to Karen Bass, her counterpart in Los Angeles, as a symbol of the transfer of the venue for the 2028 Olympic Games.

From there, the most cinematic part began, with the popular American actor Tom Cruise, the protagonist of the saga. Mission impossiblecarrying the hoops flag to Long Beach, an iconic spot in California, where it all starts again.

With information from AP, AFP and Europa Press