By Ingrid Melander and Richard Lough
(Reuters) – Paris will bring down the curtain on a Summer Games that brought dazzling sport to the heart of the French capital and restored the Olympics’ mojo, handing over the baton to Los Angeles at the Stade de France national stadium.
The ceremony’s star-studded line up signals how Los Angeles will hope to lean into one of its key selling points: its multiculturalism and the razzle dazzle of Hollywood.
LA28 has said musicians and native Californians Billie Eilish, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Snoop Dogg, the U.S. rapper who has been contributing to NBC Primetime’s coverage of the Games, will be performing in the closing ceremony.
Grammy-winning artist H.E.R. will perform the U.S. national anthem live in Paris, while rumours have swirled around Paris that Tom Cruise will also be involved.
“This is the biggest moment in LA28 history to date, as the Olympic flag passes from Paris to LA,” LA28 Chairperson and President Casey Wasserman said in a statement.
The ceremony, which begins at 9 p.m. (1900 GMT) concludes two weeks of sporting drama that saw China and the United States duke it out for top spot in the medal table right down to the last event.
Echoing the heartache delivered to France by the United States in the men’s basketball final, the American women’s side handed France a gut-wrenching one-point defeat in the same competition to earn a 40th gold medal and top spot on the medal table.
HIGH BAR
To the surprise of many French, a genuinely euphoric Olympic fever gripped the host nation during the Games.
The French had a new golden boy to celebrate with swimmer Leon Marchand emerging as the king of the pool, winning four golds in the opening week, before French judoka Teddy Riner reigned supreme as he claimed his fifth Olympic gold medal.
Simone Biles put her twisties misery of Tokyo behind her, making a long-awaited Olympic return in front of a star-studded crowd. She arrived the world’s most decorated gymnast and left with a further four gold medals for her trophy cabinet.
Breaking made its Olympic debut — to some derision on social media — whilst 3×3 basketball, sports climbing, skateboarding and surfing made their second appearances.
The IOC will be relieved that no major scandals erupted, although it did have to grapple with some controversies.
A simmering doping row involving Chinese athletes hung over the Olympic swimming meet where the United States faced the biggest challenge to their reign in decades.
A storm around gender eligibility hit the women’s boxing competition, revealing the toxic relations between the IOC and a widely discredited International Boxing Association. Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, one of those at the centre of the dispute, won gold and the respect of her silver-medal rival.
Meanwhile, a $1.5 billion clean-up of the Seine rewarded Paris with the optics of triathlon and marathon swimmers competing in the river through central Paris, without a wave of illness ensuing — even if bacteria levels forced some training to be cancelled.
But for all the sporting triumph and drama, the biggest star of the show for many was the City of Light itself and the fabulous backdrop it lent to much of the competition, from the Eiffel Tower to the gardens of the opulent Palace of Versailles.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who will be the first Black woman mayor to receive the Olympic flag, acknowledged that the French capital had set a high bar while expressing confidence that her city would prove itself a worthy successor.
“It will be a challenge but it will be a challenge we can step up to,” Bass told reporters this week. “I think our Games will really show the diversity and the international character of our city.”
(Reporting by Reuters correspondents; Writing by Ingrid Melander and Richard Lough; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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