Setting out to show that following Paris won’t be impossible, Los Angeles introduced skydiver Tom Cruise, Grammy winner Billie Eilish, and other celebrities on Sunday as it took over the Olympic hosting duties from Paris, which ended its 2024 Games with joy and flair.
After two and a half incredible weeks of Olympic sports and emotions, Paris closed its Games with a lively and star-filled ceremony at France’s national stadium. The ceremony was mixed with a celebration and a call for peace from International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach.
Following Paris’ example will be tough for Los Angeles in 2028. Paris used its cityscape brilliantly for its first Games in 100 years, with the Eiffel Tower and other famous landmarks becoming stars as they served as backdrops and venues for medal-winning performances.
But like Paris, Los Angeles also showed it has something special.
Cruise, in his Ethan Hunt character, amazed the crowd by skydiving into the stadium to the “Mission: Impossible” theme played on electric guitar.
Once he landed and greeted excited athletes, he took the Olympic flag from gymnast Simone Biles, attached it to a motorcycle, and sped out of the arena.
The message was clear: Los Angeles 2028 will be an exciting event too.
However, this was Paris’ night to shine — its chance for one last celebration. And it was a spectacular celebration. Thousands of athletes danced and sang, enjoying an artistic show that highlighted Olympic themes and fireworks.
Even Bach got into the festive spirit, jokingly calling the Paris Games “Seine-sational,” a play on the Seine River, which hosted the triathlon, marathon swimming, and the creative opening ceremony despite some water quality concerns.
At what will be his final Games after announcing his plan to step down next year, Bach also made a serious call for “a culture of peace” in a world affected by conflict.
“We know that the Olympic Games cannot create peace, but the Olympic Games can create a culture of peace that inspires the world,” he said. “Let us live this culture of peace every single day.”
Cruise then took things in a different direction.
After being lowered by a rope from the roof, Cruise was shown in a prerecorded segment where he rode his bike past the Eiffel Tower, got on a plane, and then skydived over the Hollywood Hills.
The famous Hollywood sign was altered with three circles added to the O’s, making five interlocking Olympic rings.
In the stadium, athletes’ excitement overflowed as many of them rushed the stage at one point. Stadium announcements asked them to return to their seats. Some stayed, creating an impromptu mosh pit around Grammy-winning French pop-rock band Phoenix as they performed, before security and volunteers cleared the stage.
Several French athletes were seen crowd-surfing, and U.S. team members jumped up and down in their Ralph Lauren jackets.
On the stadium’s giant screens, Billie Eilish, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, rapper Snoop Dogg — who wore pants with the Olympic rings, a popular feature of the Paris Games — and Dr. Dre kept the celebration going with a prerecorded show from a California beach.
All of them are from California, including H.E.R., who performed the U.S. national anthem live at the Stade de France, filled with more than 70,000 people.
The crowd cheered loudly as French swimmer Léon Marchand, dressed in a suit and tie instead of his swim trunks, first collected the Olympic flame from the Tuileries Gardens in Paris.
Later in the stadium, with spectators chanting “Léon, Léon,” Marchand extinguished the flame. The Summer Games had come to an end.
Their next stop: LA in 2028.
The national stadium, France’s largest, was targeted by Islamic State gunmen and suicide bombers who killed 130 people in and around Paris on November 13, 2015.
The joy and celebrations during the Games, with French athletes like Marchand winning 64 medals — including 16 gold — marked a significant step in the city’s recovery from that tragic night.
“Paris became a party again and France found itself,” said Tony Estanguet, head of the Paris Games organizing committee.
The closing ceremony also featured the last awarded medals— each embedded with a piece of the Eiffel Tower. Fittingly, since this was the first Olympics to aim for gender equality, all the medals went to women — the gold, silver, and bronze medalists from the women’s marathon earlier on Sunday.
The women’s marathon replaced the men’s race, which traditionally closed previous Games. This change was part of Paris’s effort to highlight women’s sports more. Paris was also where women first competed in the Olympics, in the Games of 1900.
The U.S. team led the medal table again, with a total of 126 medals, including 40 gold.
As the sky turned from pink to night, athletes paraded into the stadium carrying the flags of their 205 countries and territories — a symbol of global unity amid worldwide tensions and conflicts. The stadium screens displayed the words, “Together, united for peace.”
A golden figure descended from the sky into a dark world of smoke and swirling stars. Olympic symbols were celebrated, including the flag of Greece, the birthplace of the ancient Games, and the five interlocking Olympic rings, illuminated in white in the arena filled with thousands of sparkling lights.
Now, the lights are out. But the memories of Paris’ special summer will stay bright for a long time.
“We saw ourselves as a people of incorrigible grumblers,” Estanguet said. “We woke up in a country of wild fans who would not stop singing.”
