The Olympic flag was passed to Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo for the 2024 Games at the Tokyo closing ceremony on Sunday as thousands gathered near the Eiffel Tower to celebrate the handover.
Hidalgo waved the flag, decorated with the five Olympic rings, after she received it from International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach in Tokyo.
Thousands of people, including medalists who have returned from Tokyo, gathered near the Eiffel Tower to welcome the handover of the Olympic flag to Paris, which will host the Games in 2024.
A flyover by jets from the Patrouille de France (“Patrol of France”) released blue, white and red smoke – the colours of the French flag – in the sky of the capital.
French President Emmanuel Macron was filmed on the top floor of the Eiffel Tower saying the Olympic slogan “higher, faster, stronger” and adding: “Together”.
Organisers planned to unfurl a football-field sized flag with the emblem of Paris 2024 from atop the tower but opted against it due to windy weather.
The handover was followed by a concert performed by French artist Woodkid at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.
While Tokyo on Sunday handed off the Summer Games baton to Paris for 2024, the delay has effectively crammed two Olympics together. The next Winter Games convenes in just six months in another major Asian metropolis – Beijing, Japan's rival in East Asia and home to a much more authoritarian government.
Organisers of the Paris 2024 Games promised on Sunday to “take sport out of its traditional spaces” and “connect with new audiences in new ways” in 2024 – presuming, of course, the absence of a protracted pandemic.
Paris will organise the Games 100 years after last hosting the Olympics in 1924.
(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP)
