Paris reluctantly says goodbye to Olympics, Tom Cruise saves closing party
- Los Angeles takes the baton before it hosts 2028 Games, after a mixed bag of a closing show at the Stade de France
Around 45 minutes before an Olympic Games closing ceremony that saved itself when Tom Cruise leapt off a stadium roof, the centre of the Stade de France resembled a construction site.
People wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets were on their hands and knees fixing floor coverings on a makeshift stage, which was being sealed around the edges to remove trip hazards.
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Paris reluctantly says goodbye as Olympics flame is extinguished
As a metaphor for the build-up to a modern Olympics, the scene could not have been more apt. Every four years comes news of half-finished venues, inadequate accommodation and locals peeved about their city being hijacked for a sporting jamboree.
Then the carnival begins and the vast majority succumb to the joy, excitement and fun of the whole thing. On a sultry night in the French capital, the outgoing hosts staged a farewell that only intermittently stirred the same uplifting emotions as the sport.
At times, the show lost its thread, notably when feeding disco music out of loudspeakers and starting a giant karaoke party to distract from the process of stationing roughly 9,000 athletes and officials around the covered athletics track.
A show featuring acrobats dressed head-to-toe in grey drew social media criticism for its funereal nature, and was not met with overwhelming acclaim by its live audience.
