IN IMAGES, IN PICTURES. End clap for the Tokyo Games, Paris 2024 sends its invitation card

A few sax notes from space, BMX on the rooftops of Paris and breaking on the Place du Trocadéro: the Olympic stadium in Tokyo took on Parisian accents this Sunday for the end of the Olympics which marks the passage of relay for Paris in 2024.

In this stadium, still without an audience, and in the presence of Crown Prince Akishino, the athletes paraded after more than two weeks of trials. Surrounded by the Covid, Japan ensured new Olympic Games, complicated to organize, without a hitch.

So Sunday evening, the music resonated, the flame burned, the fireworks broke out, the bodies danced, before the symbolic handover took place at the end of the evening between Tokyo and Paris.

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As per protocol, Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, the host city in three years, received the Olympic flag from the hands of the governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, in traditional dress, through the president of the International Olympic Committee , Thomas Bach, and will bring it back to Paris on Monday.

<img xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" data-optimumx="1.5" data-sizes="auto" alt="Le président du Comité international olympique (CIO), Thomas Bach (C), remet le drapeau olympique à la maire de Paris, Anne Hidalgo" class="article__item–img loading_medium lazyload lazy img_resp_full media_content_full" src="data:image/svg+xml;utf8,

Arrival on the French tarmac is scheduled for early afternoon. “Perhaps for the first time in the history of Olympism, a handover between two women,” had launched the mayor the day before, received at the headquarters of the metropolitan government.

“See you in Paris”

Paris then sent “its invitation card”.

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First the national anthem re-orchestrated, with images of the Stade de France, of the Vert Galant square at the end of an island in the Seine … and as a surprise guest: Thomas Pesquet. The astronaut has indeed taken out his sax from the International Space Station (ISS) to play the last notes of The Marseillaise.

Then a catchy original soundtrack made by the electro artist Woodkid, and the National Orchestra of France as well as the Maîtrise de Radio France, for a clip with a BMX rider roaming the rooftops of Paris.

At the same time as the Tokyo ceremony, Woodkid gave a concert at the Trocadéro where festivities take place on Sunday afternoon in Paris.

Mise en abyme in Tokyo: the images of this Parisian festival showed, in the Jardins du Trocadéro, the French medalists, the judo champions Teddy Riner and Clarisse Abgégnénou in the front row, to promote these Games which will be held in Paris from July 26 to August 11, 2024.

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Small setback, the giant flag which was to be hoisted at the top of the Eiffel Tower, as the flag of the handover, could not be because of “weather hazards”, and replaced on the screens by a video montage . On the other hand, the Patrouille de France has coated its blue, white and red smoke around the Eiffel Tower. “See you in Paris,” said IOC President Thomas Bach. One hundred years after the 1924 Games.

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