New Zealand’s historic Olympics campaign, with a record 10 gold medals to finish 11th on the medal table, has ended on a sour note after the country was left out of the closing ceremony in Paris.
Well, sort of.
The Stade de France event got underway on Sunday with a spectacular stage in the centre of the arena.
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Just what it was meant to be left fans and viewers confused, with Ireland’s TV commentators assuming it was a guitar.
Others simply couldn’t figure it out until a higher angle on the broadcast became a lightbulb moment: it was a world map.
Paris 2024 organisers said the 2400m2 stage “symbolically represents a planisphere” but Kiwi humour couldn’t resist poking fun at the country’s inevitable absence.
“The French leave New Zealand off their ‘world’ map, will they never stop insulting us?” one joked.
Another wrote: “This artsy map of the world at the closing ceremony doesn’t appear to have New Zealand (or indeed Madagascar). #JusticeForIslandNations.”
One argued New Zealand was in fact there — in the form of a “conveniently located speaker/camera block thingy” just next to Australia.
The omission of New Zealand from maps is so commonplace there is an entire Wikipedia page with that title.
The government even got involved with a tourism ad featuring then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and comedian Rhys Darby.
Their video showed New Zealand had been left off a map at The Smithsonian Museum in the US, while even Starbucks and Ikea — major companies that trade in the country — have previously sold products without NZ on display.
In Paris, the Australian portion of the Olympic stage was also missing Tasmania, of course, so let’s hope the IOC is already preparing its written apology to superstar swimmer Ariarne Titmus.
And, as the viewer above noted, numerous other island nations were also ignored.
There were no miniature stages between Australia and Asia, while even India was missing to an extent.
But there was still plenty of room for athletes to join the band Phoenix on stage — disrupting planned choreography around the French musicians famous for the song Lisztomania.
New Zealand athletes got their moment when they walked into Stade de France behind flagbearers Lisa Carrington and Finn Butcher.
Carrington cemented her status as the country’s greatest Olympian with three more canoeing gold medals, taking her career haul to eight gold and one bronze.
“It’s really special to be a part of the ceremony and represent New Zealand,” she said.
“The New Zealand Team has gone so well this Olympics, I’m super stoked for all our athletes and looking forward to celebrating with everyone tonight.”
Butcher marked his official Olympic debut with gold when he won the first ever men’s kayak cross event.
“To be an Olympic champion and now carry the flag for New Zealand is beyond what I could have ever imagined,” he said.
“I’m so proud to lead our amazing New Zealand Olympic team out into the closing ceremony and celebrate not only the Games but the years of work from everyone to get here and perform. I’m so proud to be a Kiwi!”
Australia picked swimming legend Kaylee McKeown and sailing champion Matt Wearn as the flagbearers for the closing ceremony.
McKeown was already on holiday in Croatia when Australian chef de mission Anna Meares came calling with the irresistible offer.
“When Anna asked the question, I responded ‘are you serious?’” McKeown said.
“Mum goes ‘wait, what ya kidding?’. Everyone was just completely in shock. They were obviously extremely proud.
“There are so many athletes that deserve the same honour and opportunity. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I couldn’t be more thankful.”
Wearn came from the Olympic sailing venue at Marseille to Paris with his Belgian wife Emma, also a sailor at the Games.
“We’ve had a few tears in our eyes, we both know what it means to represent our country, and how much of an honour this is,” Wearn said.
“There’s a few tears shed, it’s still sinking in. Emma keeps repeating it, that I’m going to carry the flag, but it doesn’t seem real yet.”
The two flagbearers made history at the Olympics, with McKeown becoming Australia’s first four-time individual gold medallist when the swimmer defended her 100m and 200m backstroke titles.
Wearn is the first sailor to successfully defend the Olympic men’s dinghy title, having recovered from a bad bout of long COVID-19 two years ago.
Star paddler Jess Fox, who went back-to-back in C1 and finally won K1 gold after podium finishes at the last three Olympics, also had a role to play at the closing ceremony after carrying the flag at the opening ceremony.
The 30-year-old was voted onto the IOC Athletes’ Commission during Paris 2024 and was presented to the crowd during the event.
Legendary swimmer Emma McKeon also made an appearance to represent Oceania alongside IOC president Thomas Bach and Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguet.
The Australian’s Olympic career has come to an end after winning six gold medals, three silver and five bronze for 14 overall, five clear of Ian Thorpe, McKeown and Leisel Jones.
McKeon won one gold in Paris to separate herself from Thorpe as the single greatest champion in Australian Olympic history.
But McKeown and Mollie O’Callaghan are breathing down her neck ahead of Los Angeles 2028 after moving to five golds.
Hollywood handover from Paris to LA
Tom Cruise did his best to steal the show at an extraordinary au revoir to the Paris Olympics, descending from the top of the Stade de France on a cable to mark the handover of hosting duties to Los Angeles 2028.
Yet even Hollywood’s biggest superstar must have known his splendid cameo at the closing ceremony couldn’t possibly upstage the most magnifique of all Olympics.
But what a way to end two fantastic weeks in the French capital.
The 62-year-old’s daredevil act on Sunday night was cheered to the rafters that he’d abseiled from by 80,000 cheering supporters, and thousands more of the world’s best athletes who’d thronged to France’s national stadium.
After another spectacular son et lumiere show on the theme of Olympic records, fresh from the vivid imagination of creative director Thomas Jolly, whose opening ceremony had caused plenty of waves, the fun really only started properly when the handover to LA began.
After Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass had been handed the Olympic flag, accompanied by the Games’ biggest star Simone Biles, all eyes switched to the stadium roof where the even-tinier-than-usual figure of Cruise swooped down from about 40m to gasps among the athletes below.
He then swept regally through them, enjoying the high fives and selfies, before taking the flag, jumping on a motor bike and racing through the arena before Tinseltown took over, producing a movie of him riding into a plane and eventually skydiving into the Hollywood Hills.
It was not quite as splendid as the Queen leaping out of a helicopter with James Bond for London 2012 — but it was a good try, Tom.
Still, Cruise wasn’t the biggest star of the night for the home audience, who broke into cheers and chants of “Leon, Leon!” when Paris 2024’s equivalent of Cathy Freeman in 2000, golden swimmer Leon Marchand, turned up with the flame.
Later, the US glitz did take over with Billie Eilish, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre doing their stuff in a live link-up from Venice Beach in Los Angeles as the athletes partied to the end.
But parting was clearly such sweet sorrow.
Paris 2024 organiser Tony Estanguet told them: “We knew you would be brilliant, but you were magic. The most difficult part of any love affair is saying goodbye, so of course we don’t want it to end.”
IOC President Thomas Bach added: “Despite all the tensions in our world, you made the City of Light shine brighter than ever before. Thank you for making us believe in a better world for everyone.
“We know the Olympic Games cannot create peace, but the Olympic Games can create a climate of peace that inspires the world. Let us live this culture of peace every single day.”
It was, he said, a “sensational Games from start to finish”, before admitting that he’d actually got that wrong.
What he had meant to say, he explained, was that they had been “Seine-sational.”
– with AAP