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The Paris Games end as Tom Cruise accepts his Olympic mission for LA

HISTORY: The sun set on the Paris Olympics on Sunday. The closing ceremony featured performances by Billie Eilish, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Snoop Dogg, all California music icons, in a nod to the next Summer Games host city, Los Angeles. Hollywood was also represented, as Tom Cruise performed a stunt worthy of Mission Impossible. LA Mayor Karen Bass was the first black mayor to receive the Olympic flag. She acknowledged that Paris had set the bar high but expressed confidence that her city would prove a worthy successor. Thousands of Olympic fans celebrated outside the Stade de France before the two-and-a-half-hour show. The show also featured an insect-like “Golden Voyager” traversing a dystopian future in which the Olympics have disappeared and must be rediscovered. The final brings to a close two weeks of sporting drama in which the USA and China battled for first place in the medal table until the last event. The American women’s basketball team inflicted a bitter one-point defeat on France on Sunday to win its 40th gold medal, equalling China’s total. Overall, however, the USA won the most medals, surpassing China by more than 30 silver and bronze medals.