Paris Olympics come to glittering close after bringing Games back to the people

Under a slowly rusting Parisian sky, an Olympic Games that saw breakdancers light up La Concorde, beach volleyball players cavort beneath the Eiffel Tower and Snoop Dogg trot into the gardens of Versailles clad in full equestrian garb was brought to a glittering close at the Stade de France on Sunday night.

It seemed fitting that the last word should go to the ubiquitous Californian rapper, albeit by video link, to fan the final embers of a heatwave Games that started down the course of a rain-lashed River Seine, but ultimately succeeded in bringing the Olympic spirit back to the streets.

After the soulless concrete bowls of an ill-conceived Olympic Park on the outskirts of Rio, and the Covid-enforced anonymity of Tokyo, Paris levered its iconic landmarks into front and centre of a Games to which the fans flocked by tram, by Metro and by electric bike.

If Paris underscored one particular legacy for the at times turbulent 12-year reign of outgoing International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach, it may well have been his overseeing of the expansion of the urban programme that once again provided some of the Games’ most indelible memories.

Paris, long Europe’s epicentre of hip-hop culture, proved the perfect city to showcase that shift in focus, at a time when precarious geo-politics and especially the ongoing rancour with Russia make the relevance of the Games far from certain, and the accent on youth more important than ever.

Watched by an admiring Bach at stage-side, 25-year-old B-girl Ami top-rocked and froze her way to the Olympics’ first breakdancing gold, while Australia’s Arisa Trew won a skateboarding event that included a Chinese competitor who was born two weeks after the conclusion of London 2012.

Off the Corniche in Marseille, Britain’s Ellie Aldridge made light of a lack of wind to zoom to the very first kite-surfing gold, whilst almost 10,000 miles away off the Teahupoʻo reef in Tahiti, a photographer caught the moment when a Brazilian world champion surfer appeared to walk on water.

One hundred years after the last Games were staged in Paris, fans roared the successes of home favourites including judoka Teddy Riner and rugby hero Antoine Dupont. Simone Biles made a triumphant return after the personal turmoil of Tokyo, but along with the superstars came the inevitable controversy.

Among the phalanx of flagbearers ushered in to start the ceremony on Sunday were boxing gold medallists Imane Khelif  and Lin Yu-Ting, of Algeria and Chinese Taipei respectively, whose gender was impugned in an unseemly episode that extended well beyond the confines of the boxing ring at the North Paris Arena.

Afforded the honour for Team GB were trampoline gold medallist Bryony Page and defending triathlon champion Alex Yee, two bright spots for the British in a Games that was speckled with silver linings.

A plunge down the official medal table to finish beneath France and the Netherlands will count for little outside the confines of the British Olympic Association and UK Sport, whose near-£250 million of funding for the cycle will be rightfully reviewed.

But those who broke through back home did not necessarily need to step atop the Olympic podium. For every glorious Bryony-bounce and lung-bursting Keely Hodgkinson charge there were heroic near-misses and heart-warming stories offered by the likes of weightlifter Emily Campbell and shooting mum Amber Rutter.

A dark and at times melancholy ceremony drifted through a story of a Golden Voyager, who purported to take the take the watching world on a dreamlike quest to the very foundations of humanity, but the thousands of athletes ringing the Stade de France were itching for a party.

It was duly provided by Tom Cruise, who skydived in from the top of the cavernous arena, and finally, belatedly, bizarrely, by Snoop himself, who having popped up everywhere in Paris for the best part of two weeks, re-appeared on the big screen safely ensconced back in the sun-kissed climes of California.

The vast stage in the centre of the Stade de France remained empty, the athletes drifted slowly away. Tomorrow, the chain-link fencing will be pulled down and its famous monuments will once again stand in glorious isolation.

Despite a somewhat shipwrecked start, and more than a few discordant notes, Paris has given LA some act to follow in bringing the Olympic Games back to the people.