Paris says goodbye to the Olympics with golden closing ceremony

Yseult performs My Way at the Stade de France as a fireworks display lights up the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics. Photograph: Andy Chua/Reuters

It was a dreamlike, science fiction-inspired light-show spectacular that closed with Tom Cruise flying through the air from the stadium roof and whisking the Olympic flag off to Los Angeles.

Paris closed its record-breakingly successful Olympic Games on Sunday night with a stunt-filled final ceremony that began with a mysterious, golden intergalactic traveller wandering through a gloomy, barren futuristic landscape, tasked with resurrecting the Olympic spirit.