Olympics was unashamedly Parisian

As the light goes out on the 2024 Olympics, it will be remembered for its unrelenting sporting drama and indefensible controversy

Sumptuous, seductive and laced with scandal, these Olympic Games were, until the very end, truly, unashamedly Parisian. From dancing horses at the Palace of Versailles to martial arts beneath the glorious glass ceiling of the Grand Palais, they provided the most picture-perfect sporting backdrops ever seen. And for one last night, a shimmering Stade de France, lit up by the colours of 206 nations and a 62-year-old Tom Cruise descending from the roof by wire, brought down the curtain in style.
Nobody present will forget the settings in a hurry: the sunsets behind the Eiffel Tower, the illuminations over the Arc de Triomphe, the glittering St Denis light show for the 100 metres final. Even the surfing in Tahiti, 10,000 miles away in the Pacific paradise of French Polynesia, seemed designed to elevate the lavish aesthetic.
On the surface, these Olympics were a carefully-choreographed masterpiece, awash with stirring feats in the most photogenic city on earth. Just as France had its hero in Leon Marchand, the four-time champion swimmer chosen here to extinguish the flame, Britain unearthed its own luminous superstar in Keely Hodgkinson, the country’s first winner of the women’s 800 metres for 20 years.
And yet the spectacle was also scarred by far less honourable episodes, not least the International Olympic Committee’s failure of leadership in allowing two biologically male fighters to win gold medals in women’s boxing. The final evening should have been an occasion to ignore the darker moments, to bask instead in lachrymose video montages of a Games that ran about as beautifully as anyone could have hoped.
But even the BBC, whose job it is to intensify the sugar rush, could not ignore the wider context. Matthew Pinsent, normally a reliable voice of diplomacy, said of the boxing scandal from the stadium floor: “It has exploded on the IOC, it has been really unfortunate. They can’t have both equity and inclusion. It’s so weird that they allowed this to happen.”
It is a feature of these final acts that formality is ditched in favour of a giant party. And so, in stark contrast to the stately boat procession along the Seine 16 days earlier, the athletes poured into the stadium in loosely-organised chaos. They had the finest seats in the house as the stadium was plunged into darkness for the closing ceremony’s ethereal culmination – heavy on the bizarre symbolism of a “golden voyager” alien – and the handover to Los Angeles, the next hosts in 2028. The transition was memorably theatrical, with the spotlight falling on Cruise as he delivered the ultimate Hollywood highwire flourish before tearing out of the stadium on a motorbike, the Olympic flag trailing behind.
Thomas Bach, outgoing president of the IOC, expressed his gratitude to Paris for making the City of Light shine brighter than ever before. “What a magnificent stage this was,” he said. “Millions of people in iconic venues created an overwhelming atmosphere.”
There was, deservedly, a giant groan throughout the building as Bach hailed the Games as “Seine-sational”. It was the last such message that Bach would impart. He has agreed to step down as the most powerful executive in global sport next year, with Lord Sebastian Coe emerging as a prime candidate to replace him.
Bach’s soaring oratory could not mask the troubled chapters, from the triathletes who came down with E.Coli due to river pollution to the barely believable decision to permit Steven van de Velde, a convicted child rapist, to compete in beach volleyball for the Netherlands. But the magic trick of the Olympics is that the wonder almost always drowns out the wretchedness. And this instalment will be remembered, ultimately, for the transformative effect it wrought in both the city and the country. In every session, in every sport, the French cheered their athletes and sung La Marseillaise with a rare, palpable fervour. As Tony Estanguet, the head of Paris 2024, put it: “The whole of France became Olympic.”
For the British team, there were conflicting sensations. In terms of total medals, they ranked third with 65, behind only the United States and China, but the haul of 14 golds was substantially down on the three straight 20-plus hauls since London 2012. Still, the collective accomplishment drew unconditional royal approval.
The King wrote: “Your achievements, across so many disciplines, were forged from that invaluable combination of raw talent, true grit and hard toil over many years, burnished these past weeks by sportsmanship and team spirit in the finest tradition of the Games. To those who missed out on the greatest prizes, you have most certainly not fallen short in the pride that you, too, have generated for your nations. I can only say that you have all been an inspiration.”
Paris has produced the same unforgettable effect. For all the cynical machinations of those who run the Olympic movement, the 2024 Games have served as a salutary reminder of the sheer, transcendent beauty of sport.