Paris 2024 Olympics Closing Ceremony reviewed: Tom Cruise, floating pianists and Leon!

From a pianist suspended in mid-air to Tom Cruise descending from the roof of the stadium, the Paris Olympics closing ceremony was one for the ages.

“Voila! That’s how we did it.”

So ends the Olympics. It’s midnight and we’re done and dusted. Sleep when we’re dead.

“Heart-racing, head spinning, screaming, crying, crazy love for all the athletes,” says Paris 2024 boss Tony Estanguet to rapturous applause at Stade de France.

“The ones we didn’t know before and now call by their first names. You made us happy. You made us feel alive. The world needed these emotions so much. On behalf of billions of sport lovers across the five continents, thank you very much.’

Inside the stadium for the closing ceremony. Picture: Michael Reaves/Getty Images

The lavish closing ceremony peaks when American songstress H.E.R belts out The Star Spangled Banner while strumming an electric guitar – and the most Hollywood of Hollywood actors, Tom Cruise, descends from the roof while H.E.R whips up a searing riff. Cruise puts the Olympic flag on the back of his motorbike. Big-screen footage shows him driving down the Champs Elysse. He boards a big old jet airliner, parachutes into the California desert and adds three O’s above the Hollywood sign to form the Olympic rings. A skateboarder takes the flag to Venice Beach, where Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Billie Eilish are playing to an LA28 backdrop, and let’s be fair dinkum.

LA will be a hoot.

Tom Cruise dropped in on the Paris closing ceremony. Picture: Franck Fife/AFP

Snoop Dogg performs at the LA28 Olympic Games Handover Celebration. Picture: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for LA28

Oo la la right now, though, because Paris has her party dress on in a marathon, multicoloured ceremony going from 9pm until midnight.

“Medals, happiness, pride and of course great moments of sport,” says Estanguet. “Since that anthological opening ceremony on the Seine, it has been an absolutely exceptional adventure.

“For a fortnight, we have shared these moments of mad intensity with the whole world, and this evening we are offering you another unique experience. We’re going to celebrate the athletes, the sports and the Games in a show that’s absolutely grandiose.”

And then … the show is blindingly, thrillingly grandiose. French singer Zaho de Sagazan does an achingly gorgeous version of Sous les Cole de Paris before the king of the pool, Leon Marchand, joins her in the gardens near the Louvre.

Zaho de Sagazan performs Sous les Cole de Paris during the closing ceremony. Picture: Richard Pelham/Getty Images

Orchestra Divertimento swoons through the French national anthem, and then thousands of ebullient athletes, happy as clams, flood the stadium. They’re bopping around like school’s out for summer. It’s a joy to see them letting their hair down. Like real humans! A reminder they’re not machines.

One thing we learn – stadium ceremonies are better. Paris’s experiment in taking the opening parade to the streets had its moments – the steel horse galloping down River Seine and Celine Dion singing from halfway up the Eiffel Tower – but a stadium show is superior. A self-contained product. You settle in like it’s a night at the theatre – highlighted by pianist Alain Roche being elevated halfway to the roof, tinkling the ivories mid-air while opera singer Benjamin Bernheim croons the Hymn to Apollo.

French pianist Alain Roche plays the "Hymne to Apollo" in mid-air. Picture: Franck Fife/ AFP

Thousands of athlete, led by the Americans, storm the stage. Over the loud speaker a lady politely says, “Dear athletes, please leave the stage. Thank you very much.” Hundreds stay and crowd around French band Phoenix.

Lead singer Thomas Mars looks a bit freaked out. He wasn’t supposed to have all these wild-eyed athletes around him. Suits the Games. All a bit off the cuff, unruly and unscripted. The athletes eventually nick off. Mars must miss them. He jumps off the stage and disappears into a sea of Olympians.

Then come the speeches. Usually boring and the chance to grab a cuppa. But Estanguet is great. He says the Games were a wave the French and the world have ridden together. Says there’s been record ratings and marriage proposals. “We wanted excitement, we got passion,” he says. “We wanted inspiration, we got Leon Marchand.”

And here he is. Carrying the Olympic torch into the stadium. A thunderous chant. Leon! Leon! IOC president Thomas Bach declares the Games closed. Everyone boos, the athletes file out in the knowledge their night is but young, journalists write their final sentences, the music fades, the lights go out, fireworks go off and they say, “Voila! That’s how we did it.”

Originally published as Paris 2024 Olympics Closing Ceremony reviewed: Tom Cruise, floating pianists and Leon!