TOKYO — Japan took its Olympic bow on Sunday.
Tokyo handed the baton to Paris immediately after staging a Online games that was delayed by Covid-19 and dismayed a skeptical community but even so still delivered its share of unforgettable moments.
The rapid-paced and tightly-scripted closing ceremony kicked off at 8 p.m. Tokyo time (7 a.m. ET) and, just like the opening ceremony, was a celebration of athletics and Japan. It finished with the phrase “arigato,” which is Japanese for “thank you,” displayed on a giant display as the athletes strolled off the subject.
And all of it performed out at the Tokyo Olympic stadium right before an audience of mostly empty seats.
The relaxation of the planet viewed it at house, with the party streaming dwell on NBCOlympics.com and rebroadcast on unique protection later on in primary time on NBC.
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In the French money, crowds collected to celebrate the handover of the summer season online games to Paris 2024, dancing and celebrating at the foot of the Eiffel Tower though fighter planes trailing a tricolor of blue, white and crimson smoke swooped through the sky.
“I declare the game titles of the 32nd Olympiad closed,” Thomas Bach, president of the Intercontinental Olympic Committee, stated as the planet bid goodbye to a Games like no other.
“See you in Paris.”
The ceremony began with just one athlete from just about every participating place marching in with their flags. When the athletes had been assembled in a circle, the soundtrack quickly segued into a jazzy variety during which these members even now remaining in Tokyo streamed out to get section in the ceremony, their faces covered in masks.
The upbeat extravaganza at 1 point featured The Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra knocking out a dance edition of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” prior to the beating of the traditional taiko drum signaled the begin of the celebration of Japan’s exceptional and vibrant tradition.
It capped two weeks of Olympic motion that was viewed by hundreds of thousands of folks all around the world but witnessed in individual by a find couple of since of a pandemic that will stalk the host nation very long right after the athletes have left.
It was an Olympics faced with unprecedented logistical worries and domestic opposition, but also a stage for sporting glory mixed in with geopolitical intrigue, discussions about athletes’ mental wellness and so a great deal a lot more.
The United States after again led the entire world with 113 medals as of Sunday early morning, including 39 golds, ahead of China and the Russian Olympic Committee on both counts.
In a online video information to the staff posted on Twitter Saturday, President Joe Biden thanked the U.S. athletes “for exhibiting what we can do jointly as a single The united states and as one crew.”
“Beyond the medals and the results, you reminded us that we are stronger than we thought we ended up,” Biden reported.
Japan manufactured the top rated 5 with 58 medals, almost 50 % of them gold, according to the hottest NBC Information tally.
Masa Takaya, a spokesman for the Online games who experienced spent a lot of the Olympics fielding challenging thoughts on the coronavirus and other controversies from skeptical reporters, did not try out to conceal his gratification at Friday’s every day information briefing.
“It’s important that athletes from each individual nation perform their greatest, but also fantastic to see athletes from the dwelling soil carrying out well,” he stated.
They secured their most cherished medal of the good deal early Saturday, shutting out the U.S. to win the baseball-mad country’s initially-ever gold in the activity.
Japan mounted the world’s greatest sporting celebration in the face of a plague that has infected more than 200 million people and killed 4.3 million all around the earth, and — propelled by the delta variant — began spreading via Tokyo at a report amount just as the Games were acquiring underway.
The Olympics may be at an end, but the Paralympics in Tokyo are continue to forward. They kick off Aug. 24 and run as a result of Sept. 5.
History will judge irrespective of whether these Olympics were being a achievement. But this a lot is obvious:
These were being the Game titles in which gymnastics star Simone Biles took household a crew silver medal, a bronze for the stability beam, and a golden legacy on and off the mat after she shocked the entire world by pulling out of some crucial situations to focus on her psychological health.
These had been the Video games when established stars Allyson Felix and Katie Ledecky included to their medal hauls and a constellation of new Olympics stars emerged, like swimmer Caeleb Dressel, surfer Carissa Moore, gymnast Suni Lee and runners Sydney McLaughlin and Molly Seidel.
The U.S. women’s soccer team fell short in their pursuit of one more gold medal, but veteran striker Alex Morgan — a person of a lot of stars of this golden generation who may possibly have played in their past Olympics — instructed NBC Information they are proud of their really hard-attained components.
“We are definitely delighted that we arrived absent with a bronze medal,” Morgan mentioned.
The U.S. men’s basketball staff, led by Kevin Durant, defeated a formidable French squad to carry dwelling a fourth straight Olympic gold and cement America’s standing as the world’s pre-eminent basketball electrical power.
Then the U.S. women’s basketball staff, led by Brittney Griner, defeated a scrappy Japanese staff to protected America’s seventh straight Olympic gold medal in this occasion.
People have been also launched to Olympic heroes from unlikely sites, like Alaska teenager Lydia Jacoby, who gained gold in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke and hails from a point out with precisely just one Olympic-dimension swimming pool — which she could not practice in for months because of Covid-19.
They cheered on the young ones competing in the Olympics, like 15-year-old U.S. swimmer Katie Grimes, and a litany of skateboarding teenagers, which include Japan’s 13-12 months-aged champion Momiji Nishiya. They cheered on age-defying athletes, as well, like U.S. women’s basketball player Sue Hen, who is 40, equestrian rider Phillip Dutton, 57, and Uzbekistan’s Oksana Chusovitina, who at age 46 is the oldest Olympic gymnast in heritage.
These were being the Online games exactly where a Belarusian sprinter defied her country’s authoritarian leader by criticizing her coaches, escaped the handlers trying to mail her house at a Tokyo-location airport, and found sanctuary in Poland.
Other female athletes stood up — or took a knee — for Black Life Matter and #MeToo, and rebelled against having to contend in revealing outfits.
The Video games opened to protests in Tokyo and broad opposition from the Japanese men and women, who feared an inflow of athletes from abroad would worsen the Covid crisis at residence, but who were being yet welcoming to the hundreds of readers in their midst.
There had been Olympic shows of kindness and class — runners Isaiah Jewett of the U.S. and Nigel Amos of Botswana assisted each individual to their feet following they obtained tangled and fell throughout the 800-meter semifinals, though significant jumpers Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy and Mutaz Barshim of Qatar embraced in delight as they agreed to share a gold medal.
But there was also the Olympic meltdown of Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic smashing his racket in aggravation following he failed to medal and blew his chance of turning into the first man to gain the Golden Slam — four Grand Slam titles and an Olympic gold medal in the very same year.
Algerian judo competitor Fethi Nourine defied the Olympic suitable by withdrawing from level of competition relatively than struggle an Israeli. And in what could be an Olympic 1st, a coach with the German modern-day pentathlon workforce was kicked out of the Video games for punching a horse that balked at leaping.
Just 3 weeks back, the Tokyo Games appeared to be imploding.
Important associates of the Tokyo 2020 arranging committee had been knocked out by scandal. Polls confirmed a solid greater part of Japanese have been continue to opposed to the Olympics. 1 of its major sponsors, Toyota Motor Corp., pulled its Japanese Television set advertisements lest it be forever bound to an event that seemed selected to be tarnished. And then arrived the constant stream of reports that athletes ended up screening favourable for Covid-19 and screening the assurances of Japan’s leaders that the Online games would be “safe and safe.”
Olympics historian Jeremy Fuchs instructed NBC Information at the time that “there’s by no means been an entirely content Olympics” and that the Game titles have, at moments, been overshadowed by contentious debates about human legal rights and politics, even too much shelling out.
“But this a lot controversy I imagine is genuinely unparalleled,” Fuchs reported. “I imagine you’d be challenging-pressed to uncover an instance in history in which citizens of a host state are this unsatisfied.”
In an job interview with NBC Information on the eve of the Tokyo Olympics, Japanese Key Minister Yoshihide Suga admitted it was a battle to sell the event to his people today. But he said the Game titles would go on.
And they did.