Paris, 12 August 2024 (dpa/MIA) — The Paris Olympics ended with a lavish and futuristic closing ceremony on Sunday and the handover to the 2028 hosts Los Angeles.

"The Olympic Games Paris 2024 were Olympic Games of a new era," International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach said.

He praised them as "an amazing stage" with "iconic venues" in which the fans created "an overwhelming atmosphere."

"These were sensational Games from start to finish - or dare I say, Seine-sational Olympic Games from start to finish," said Bach at the end of the third Games in the French capital, the others being in 1900 and 1924.

The reference, which only drew a lukewarm response, was to the city's river which played centre stage at the opening ceremony and the site of the triathlon swimming legs and open water swimming - after plenty of water quality concerns.

COVID-19, too, marred the Games, with the virus affecting athletes such as American sprinter Noah Lyles and German long jumper Malaika Mihambo, both of whom had to be carried off the track in a wheelchair after collapsing and receiving medical attention.

More than 40 other athletes tested positive for COVID-19, including British swimmer Adam Peaty, Australian swimmers Lani Pallister and Zac Stubblety-Cook, and German decathlete Manuel Eitel, according to the World Health Organization’s event-based surveillance system.

The Paris Games' 182-page media handbook contained no mention of COVID-19, however.

The three-hour show at the Stade de France featured 270 performers and acts including French bands Phoenix and Air, plus Billie Eilish, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Snoop Dogg in the handover part to LA who dazzled the stadium crowd and billions more around the world via TV and livestreams.

Athletes partied so hard in the arena that stadium announcements were needed at some stage for them to clear the stage.

'The whole of France became Olympic'

Organizing committee chief Tony Estanguet said that the July 26 opening ceremony on the Seine started a momentum and that "together, we have experienced Games like nothing the world has seen before.

"We wanted excitement, we got passion. We wanted to be inspired, we got [swim sensation] Léon Marchand.

"From one day to the next, time stood still and a whole country got goosebumps. From one day to the next, Paris became a party again and France came back together. From one day to the next, the whole of France became Olympic."

Estanguet and Bach thanked the more than 40,000 volunteers who played a crucial role in making the Games possible.

Bach speaks of culture of peace

Like in past speeches Bach referred to the Olympic spirit in a tense geopolitical situation.

"Despite all the tensions in our world, you came here ... to make the City of Light shine brighter than ever before," said Bach, whose presidency ends next year.

"We know that the Olympic Games cannot create peace. But the Olympic Games can create a culture of peace that inspires the world."

Games closed and flame extinguished

He later officially closed the Games, and called "on the youth of the world to assemble four years from now in Los Angeles to celebrate with all of us the Games of the XXXIV Olympiad."

Marchard, who won four golds and a bronze, to become the Games poster boy, brought the Olympic flame from the Olympic cauldron at Tuileries gardens to the stadium where he extinguished it before French singer Yseult wrapped it all up with a rousing rendition of "My Way."

Handover to LA

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo passed the Olympic flag to LA counterpart Karen Bass to stage the event a third time as well in 2028, having also been hosts in 1932 and 1984.

Award-winnning artist H.E.R. sang the American anthem before Tom Cruise launch himself into the arena from its roof and drove away on a motorbike with the Olympic flag - symbolically to LA where he parachuted out of a plane.

Stars including former athletics great Michael Johnson took over and the musical acts performed at iconic Venice Beach in a very different vibe to the French part of the show.

The French show

There, tribute was paid to Paris plus karaoke singing to national music icons Charles Aznavour and Johnny Halliday.

The main artistic part featuring among others a vertical piano saw an extraterrestrial arriving in a distance future on a lost civilisation earth, having found the French-made Golden Record of the Voyager spacecraft which is an identity card of humanity.

He uncovers the ancient Olympics, the Olympic rings, just as Pierre de Coubertin did in reviving the Games in 1896.

Also included in the show was the victory ceremony for the women's marathon, won by Dutch Sifan Hassan, 36 hours after a 10,000m bronze and seven days after a 5,000m bronze as well.