The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris ended with an atmospheric closing ceremony at the Stade de France. The focus of the music part was the French pop band Phoenix.
Phoenix presented their most famous hits “Lisztomania”, “1901”, “Will I Ever Feel Better” and the song “Nightcall” with Kavinsky on the big stage. Air also performed with Phoenix with their song “Playground Love”. Another highlight was the joint performance by Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend and Phoenix singer Thomas Mars with their song “Tonight”.
Despite the fact that the music was played on tape, the athletes celebrated the end of the event with great enthusiasm to the music of the band. There could hardly have been a more fitting choice of music for the closing ceremony of the Games.
However, the comments of the ZDF reporters, who commented on the music as if it were a football match, were disturbing.
After the music part, the Olympic flame was extinguished, officially ending the successful Olympic Games in Paris 2024.
The closing ceremony began with a tribute to the French capital. In the Jardin des Tuileries near the Louvre, Frenchwoman Zaho de Sagazan sang the famous song “Sous le ciel de Paris” together with a choir. Swimming superstar Léon Marchand, four-time Olympic champion in Paris, carried the Olympic flame in a lantern towards the Louvre, where it arrived at the Stade de France later that evening.
The show then began in the stadium under the watchful eyes of French President Emmanuel Macron and IOC President Thomas Bach, as well as over 71,000 spectators. The extraordinary performances of the athletes were the focus of attention as the flag bearers of the countries entered the stadium. Triathlete Laura Lindemann and canoeist Max Rendschmidt, both gold medalists in their disciplines, carried the flag for Germany.
The artistic part of the evening included a journey through time, symbolized by dances, climbing demonstrations and the “Golden Voyager” who abseiled from the stadium roof. Another highlight was the performance of the Swiss pianist Alain Roche, who played the “Hymn to Apollo” on a flying piano, accompanied by opera singer Benjamin Bernheim.
At the end of the show, Tom Cruise flew from the roof of the stadium to the music of Her to take the Olympic flag to Los Angeles, where the next Games will take place in 2028. There, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billie Eilish and Snoop Dogg, who was omnipresent at the Games, waited together with Dr. Dre on sunny Venice Beach and provided a foretaste of the spectacle in four years.
With the extinguishing of the Olympic flame, the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris came to an end. In addition to the top sporting achievements, Celine Dion’s moving performance at the opening ceremony at the Eiffel Tower will go down in history as an iconic moment.
