McCarthy and McSharry star for Team Ireland during closing ceremony

After more than two weeks of elite sport battles, the Olympic flame was extinguished in Paris and handed to Los Angeles — the host of Olympic Games 2028.

As evening set in Paris, French four-gold medal winning swimmer Léon Marchand  extinguished the cauldron — a 7m diameter ring of fire in the Jardin de Thuileries — and brought the Olympic torch to hand over to the mayor of Los Angeles.

Stadium screens shared the words “together, united for peace,” as the flags of 205 countries were waved by the athletes below — a show of unity in a world suffering geo-political tensions and multiple wars, including in Gaza and the Ukraine.

Woman’s marathon winner Sifan Hassan, from Holland, was awarded the last gold medal of the Games.

Awarding medals to the men’s marathon winners usually features in the closing ceremony, but this year the final medals were awarded to women instead as Paris aimed to shine more light on female sporting prowess. Women first participated in the Olympic Games in Paris in 1900.

Artistic director Thomas Jolly said the show was called 'Records', and it aimed to take the audience on a science-fiction, dream-like immersive journey through time — from the origins of the Olympic Games to a dystopian future when the Olympics have disappeared and must be reinvented.

A dancer wearing glimmering gold abseiled from the ceiling for the start of the dramatic performance and a piano was played while suspended vertically in mid-air. 

Ireland’s centenary year at the Olympics was also Team Ireland’s most successful Games ever

Ireland won seven medals, four gold across four different sports: Swimmer Daniel Wiffen, gymnast Rhys McClenaghan, back-to-back Olympic champions boxer Kellie Harrington, and rowers Fintan McCarthy and Paul O’Donovan, and three bronze medals from swimmers Mona McSharry and Daniel Wiffen, and rowers Philip Doyle and Daire Lynch.

There were also many other performances of note and ground-breaking firsts across the team —  including three fourth places — most recently in the women’s 4x400m relay, for Rhasidat Adeleke in the women’s 400m, and for sailors Rob Dickson and Seán Waddilove in the Men’s Skiff down in Marseilles.

Golfer Rory McIlroy, in his second Olympics, also came close to the podium finishing in a tie for fifth, with rowers Mags Cremen and Aoife Casey also fifth in the final of the lightweight women’s double (LW2x).

Team-mates Nathan Timoney and Ross Corrigan were sixth in the men’s pair final (M2-), as were the Men’s rugby sevens team. 

Liam Jegou was seventh in a gripping canoe slalom final, as were the women’s four in rowing, and the showjumping team at the Palace of Versailles.

Ellen Walsh returned to Tempelogue as only the third Irish female swimmer ever to make an Olympic final; finishing eighth in it. Eighth at the Olympic Games was also the place for the women’s pair in rowing, the women’s rugby sevens team, and heavyweight boxer Jack Marley was beaten in the last eight.

Many of the 133 Team Ireland athletes, and a significant number of the coaches and support staff, attended the closing ceremony to Paris 2024.

Team Ireland’s green jacket, custom made by Irish designer Laura Weber, was inspired by the tracksuit top Cork athlete Sonia O’Sullivan wore when receiving her medal in Sydney 2000

Team Ireland will fly home on Monday for the official homecoming in front of the GPO on O’Connell St, Dublin, at 12.30pm.

President Michael D Higgins congratulated all the Olympians “who have represented our country with such distinction over the last two-and-a-half-weeks". 

“Each of our record-setting medallists has brought enormous joy to all those watching across our island and beyond, and has been a source of encouragement," he said.

“All those who achieved so much by qualifying and competing to such a high standard have made Irish people everywhere so immensely proud."

The Olympics had been the culmination of a lifetime of hard work and dedicated training by athletes, and the President extended his admiration and appreciation to all who competed. 

"Our Olympians' efforts are a credit to their coaches, their families, and supporters — so many of whom travelled to Paris to cheer them on — and to all those who have helped them on their individual and collective journeys," he said.

"The Irish people's love of sport has been moved on to a whole new level by these Games.

"As we look to the future, the additional funding which has been promised provides hope that these fantastic results can be built upon in the years ahead."