Closing ceremony reflections

 In a previous post the morning after the Closing Ceremony, I spoke briefly about the ceremony, but I promised another post reflecting a little more on what we saw.

As in the last two closing ceremonies that I had been to, I got there pretty early. The idea was to make sure I had a spot in the venue media center inside the Stade de France and a fairly decent seat inside the stadium. As I mentioned in a previous post, I didn't have a tabled seat, which meant that I was sitting in a normal stadium seat, which was just fine. In Tokyo and Beijing I had a tabled seat, which allowed me to keep my laptop and phone charged.

This time, I left my laptop in the media center and basically just carried my phone and my camera out to the stadium seat. Like in Tokyo and Beijing, I got the chance to sit and watch the dancers and the musicians rehearse their performance. The scene where the Olympic Rings are raised high above the floor of the stadium, was one that was rehearsed numerous times. On a couple of different occasions, the rings didn't get raised properly, or were not lifted at all after the dancers moved the rings to their position on the floor. It was very obvious what was supposed to happen as they rehearsed and when the time came in the actual ceremony, it went off flawlessly, at least from my point of view.

The Los Angeles 2028 handover was a bit of a weird situation. It had been publicized that Tom Cruise would take part in the ceremony and sure enough, he zip lined down into the stadium and took the flag on a motorcycle out of the stadium. From there, the video screen showed him cruising through the streets of Paris, onto a plane and eventually leaping out into the desert, where he hands off the flag to a series of Olympians as they make their way toward Long Beach and a concert put on by Los Angeles 2028 featuring Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billie Eilish and Snoop Dogg with Dr. Dre. The iconic Hollywood sign was turned into the Olympic Rings and the flag was officially passed on to Los Angeles.

French Olympic hero Leon Marchand delivered the Olympic flame into the stadium, where it was extinguished and the Paris Olympics officially came to a close.

The Tokyo Olympic closing ceremony's handover to Paris is partially what convinced me to apply for the Paris credentials and while the Los Angeles handover video was great, I will not make the decision about that until after Milan-Cortina in 2026. That is one I am definitely looking forward to. 


The Paris Olympics closing ceremony brought to an end a thrilling few weeks in the French capital.


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