Article by Will Swanton, courtesy of the Courier Mail.
“Voila! That’s how we did it.”
So ended the Olympics.
“Heart-racing, head spinning, screaming, crying, crazy love for all the athletes,” said Paris 2024 boss Tony Estanguet to rapturous applause at Stade de France.
“The ones we didn’t know before and now call by their first names. You made us happy. You made us feel alive. The world needed these emotions so much. On behalf of billions of sport lovers across the five continents, thank you very much.”
The lavish closing ceremony peaked when American songstress H.E.R belted out The Star Spangled Banner while strumming an electric guitar – and the most Hollywood of Hollywood actors, Tom Cruise, descended from the roof while H.E.R whipped up a searing riff.
Cruise put the Olympic flag on the back of his motorbike. Big-screen footage showed him driving down the Champs Elysee. He boarded a jet airliner, parachuted into the California desert and added three Os above the Hollywood sign to form the Olympic rings. A skateboarder took the flag to Venice Beach, where Red Hot Chili Peppers and Billie Eilish played to an LA28 backdrop … and let’s be fair dinkum: LA will be a hoot.
Oo la la right now, though, because Paris had her party dress on in a marathon, multicoloured ceremony. “Medals, happiness, pride and of course great moments of sport,” Estanguet said.
“Since that anthological opening ceremony on the Seine, it has been an absolutely exceptional adventure. For a fortnight, we have shared these moments of mad intensity with the whole world, and this evening we are offering you another unique experience. We’re going to celebrate the athletes, the sports and the Games in a show that’s absolutely grandiose.”
And then … the show was blindingly, thrillingly grandiose. French singer Zaho de Sagazan did an achingly gorgeous version of Sous les Cole de Paris before the king of the pool, Frenchman Leon Marchand, who won four gold medals, joined her in the gardens near the Louvre. Orchestra Divertimento swooned through the French anthem, and then thousands of ebullient athletes, happy as clams, flooded the stadium.
They were bopping around like school’s out for summer. It was a joy to see them letting their hair down. Like real humans! A reminder they’re not machines.
One thing we learned – stadium ceremonies are better. Paris’s experiment in taking the opening parade to the streets had its moments – the steel horse galloping down River Seine and Celine Dion singing from halfway up the Eiffel Tower – but a stadium show is superior. A self-contained product. You settle in like it’s a night at the theatre – highlighted by pianist Alain Roche being elevated halfway to the roof, tinkling the ivories mid-air while opera singer Benjamin Bernheim croons the Hymn to Apollo.
Thousands of athletes, led by the Americans, stormed the stage. Over the loudspeaker a lady politely said: “Dear athletes, please leave the stage. Thank you very much.” Hundreds stayed and crowded around French band Phoenix.
Lead singer Thomas Mars looked a bit freaked out. He wasn’t supposed to have all these wild-eyed athletes around him.
Suited the Games. All a bit off the cuff, unruly and unscripted. The athletes eventually nicked off. Mars must have missed them. He jumped off the stage and disappeared into a sea of Olympians.
Then came the speeches, usually boring and the chance to grab a cuppa. But Estanguet was great. He said the Games were a wave the French and the world had ridden together. He said there had been record ratings and marriage proposals. “We wanted excitement, we got passion,” he said. “We wanted inspiration, we got Leon Marchand.”
And there he was. Carrying the Olympic torch into the stadium. A thunderous chant. Leon! Leon! IOC president Thomas Bach declared the Games closed.
Everyone booed, the athletes file out in the knowledge their night was but young, the music faded, the lights went out, fireworks went off and they said: “Voila! That’s how we did it.”
