Another edition of the Olympic Games end in Paris
The silver medalist weightlifter Mihaela Cambei carried Romania’s flag during the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Paris
Corina Cristea, 12.08.2024, 14:00
A small torch carried on Sunday by the phenomenal French swimmer Leon Marchand – the only athlete to have won four gold medals at the Olympics in Paris – marked the end of the 33rd edition of the Olympic Games.
Romania ended this edition of the prestigious competition with 9 medals, of which, three gold, four silver and two bronze. Romania’s gold medalists were swimmer David Popovici, in the 200 meters freestyle race, Andrei Cornea and Marian Enache in the men’s double race and the Romania’s women eight made up of Maria Magdalena Rusu, Roxana Anghel, Ancuta Bodnar, Maria Lehaci, Adriana Adam, Amalia Beres, Ioana Vrinceanu, Simona Radis and Victoria Stefania Petreanu. Ancuta Bodnar and Simona Radis walked away with silver from the women’s double scull event and so did Ioana Vrinceanu and Roxana Anghel in the women’s pair. Gianina van Groningen and Ionela Cozmiuc also became silver medalists in the light-weight women’s double scull and so did weightlifter Mihaela Cambei in the 49 kilogram category.
David Popovici with bronze in the 100 meter freestyle race and gymnast Ana Barbosu stepped onto the podium’s third step.
Romania had a better presence in Paris than in Tokyo 2021 and Rio 2016, where its athletes got only four medals. And they fared better than in London Olympics, from where they walked away with only 7 medals.
However, the number of medals won in Paris is significantly lower when compared to Sidney 2000, when our athletes reaped no less than 26 medals.
Romania went 23rd out of the 206 participants in the medal ranking in Paris. The United States topped the table with 40 gold, 44 silver and 42 bronze medals, followed by China with 40 gold, 27 silver and 24 bronze. Japan went third with 20 gold, 12 silver and 13 bronze.
The host country, France, ranked fifth with 16 gold medals, 26 silver and 22 bronze.
The closing ceremony was attended by 80 thousand people who came to celebrate sports and their winners. Bearing the medals they won, athletes were allowed to enter the stadium without being imposed any alphabetical order as two weeks ago in the opening ceremony.
An original grandiose show of light and colour with artists wearing SF costumes was staged during the closing ceremony, which also included fireworks.
Roughly 300 dancers, actors and musicians put up a show in which extraterrestrials coming from outer space were restoring the Olympic Games and rebuilding the Olympic Circles.
During the aforementioned ceremony, the Olympic Flag was handed over to the next host country, the USA, and a 15-minute Hollywood performance came to complete the show.
Upon a spectacular jump over the stadium, the US film star Tom Cruise has been assigned another ‘mission impossible’, namely to carry the Olympic flag to Los Angeles.
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