Paris 2024 Olympics closing ceremony: the Games come to an end – as it happened

The Olympic flag has now passed to the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, via Tom Cruise

Paris is hugged by a pink sky and looks resplendent on the TV footage. Have the Beeb put some sort of filter on that? Seems almost too perfect. It's beautiful enough to bring a tear to the eye and send you grasping for the Gauloises. C'est magnifique.

Over the next few hours we'll see the Olympic flag ceremonially transferred from Paris to LA and more than likely an entire country's GDP of fireworks spaffed into the inky Parisian sky at the close.

Celebratory moments from previous Olympic Games have seen a reunion of the Spice Girls, the British pop group arriving into the arena standing atop the famous London black cab taxis singing Spice up your Life' at London 2012.

At Sydney 2000, Australian popstar Kylie Minogue brought the curtain down on the first Games of the new millennium with a rendition of ABBA's Dancing Queen' clad in a bright pink showgirl costume, complete with feathers."

More than 100 performers, acrobats, dancers, and circus artists will join world-renowned singers in various musical performances. Part of the show will take place in the air, accompanied by spectacular lighting effects and the flair of the French in the costumes, with the overall effect taking spectators - both those at home and in person - on a journey into the past, to the origins of the Games, but also into the future, and ultimately to a timeless universe".

On 11 August 2024, the Olympic Games will be over, and the Olympic flame will be extinguished, that moment will remind us just how precious these Olympic Games are - a unique monument to a shared experience - and therefore fragile."