Farewell to Paris 2024, the Games of Light after the cold and pandemic silence of Tokyo, reconciliation with the passion of sport, the celebration of a city with full pavilions and stadiums, from Saint-Denis to Roland Garros, from La Défense to Le Bourget via the Place de la Concorde, happy and civilized people. Is the legacy of paris, something of that summer magic of Barcelona 92, a rediscovery or a return to the origin. “An opportunity for humanity”, they say, and for 16 days, a truce, everything seems possible. Yesterday, more than 70,000 people at the Stade de France and millions around the world said goodbye to an event that, through its sporting, organizational and social success, once again returns to this honorary title of the best Games in history. Podium at least.
France beats with pride as Leon Marchand, elegantly dressed, grabs a drop of the Olympic fire near the floating cauldron of the Tuileries and begins a slow march along a dirt road. The flame is coming home. For two weeks, thousands of Parisians and tourists have been walking at night near the illuminated Louvre, checking the time on their mobile phones, to see if it is 10 p.m. and the Olympic fireball, 30 meters high and 22 meters high, is walking. -large balloon, lights up a diameter that surprises with its beauty and its slow ascent towards the sky, with its yellow heat that is born from a seven-meter wide ring. It is hard to believe that something different could impress in a city that is itself a monument, but Paris has fallen in love with the cauldron and does not want to let go of it and let it fly. The encapsulated fire begins its journey back to the stadium.
Paris has been rediscovered, and even Marseille, to which an orchestra plays music on the athletics track, and the dance stands give voice, different sounds, a soft version of Viktor le Masne, more moving, far from the martial and aggressive anthem of 1792. Through a labyrinth of bridges and corridors in the center of the stadium, a puzzle of continents, the representatives of the 205 delegations parade. The golden boys of Spanish athletics, the walker María Pérez and the jumper Jordan Díaz, wave the flag, and France celebrates Antoine Dupont, rugby player, and the cyclist Pauline Ferrand, heroes of a country fifth in the medal table after the United States. The United States and China, tied with 40 gold medals, Japan and Australia, the pride of being the first European nation among the best. smile American swimmer Katie Ledecky, thethe Olympic swimmer with the most gold medals (nine) and the Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, another emblematic child of these Games.
Tolga Akmen / SWIMMING POOL (EFE)
The water parade on the rainy Seine at the opening is now the traditional march of the athletes, the usual scenes of small flags and mobile phones in hand, and a little hair dye for a successful bet. The American team shows the stars and stripes on its arm, the letters USA on its chest. Everyone dances in the discotheque of the Stade de France, the end of the party under We are the champions. The last three athletes to receive the medal of the Games receive a double reward. The marathoners, the Dutch Sifan Hassan, the Ethiopian Tigst Assefa and the Kenyan Hellen Obiri, winners on Sunday morning, are decorated by the president of the IOC, Thomas Bach, and by Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, before the crew.
The Games are the past, the embrace of the historical marathon, but also the future. From the sky of the stadium descends the golden traveler, a visitor from a time to come, from a time when the Olympic Games have disappeared, and who has not traveled on an invasion mission, as in the alien films, but in search of knowledge. What is it that makes the Games so much talked about in the ancients?, the man with the unknown face must ask himself. It is a flag of Greece that is given to the alien, who begins to understand, the Olympic rings that form in the sky, and remain there, symbol of the united world, a few words from Pierre de Coubertin.
Tony Estanguet, the president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee, once again touched a national chord by recalling the 16 gold medals of the French delegation, a record surpassed by the 15 of Atlanta 96, and Bach highlights gender equality as the legacy of Paris.
Mayor Anne Hidalgo offers the Olympic flag relay to her Los Angeles colleague Karen Bass, and she talks, with Simonhe Biles, about the “global identity” of her city as a brand, and its logo is already a symbol of these new times of codes, numbers and letters, something short and low, LA28, as if it were a license plate, the A drawing an American flag. The spectacle is Tom Cruise, who rappels down from the roof of the hall, grabs the Olympic flag and rides it on a motorcycle, as if it were the filming of Mission: Impossible. The film shows the actor driving through the streets of Paris and boarding a plane to Los Angeles, where he dresses the Hollywood sign on the iconic Mount Lee in the Olympic colors. The legendary Michael Johnson runs through the streets of California and skateboarding phenomenon Jagger Eaton takes to Venice Beach, another nod to urban sports. If Paris brought sport to the street, skateboarding under the Obelisk, 3×3, climbing at Le Bourget, Los Angeles will be the sun, the sea. Snoop Dogg and Red Hot Chili Peppers play.
Leon Marchand arrived at the stadium with the Olympic fire. Farewell to Paris, his enchantment. Los Angeles has the illuminated path.
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