TThe Paris Games ended with Tom Cruise jumping from the roof of the Stade de France and an Olympic medal haul for Great Britain that, after 19 days of outstanding athleticism, was only surpassed by sporting superpowers the USA and China.

As the Olympic baton was passed to Los Angeles 2028 in a spectacular closing ceremony with a touch of Hollywood flair, Andy Anson, chief executive of the British Olympic Association, admitted he was frustrated that the relative scarcity of gold medals had left Great Britain’s team in seventh place in the official medal table, their lowest position since Athens 2004.

Gold medals are the key to success in the official table, but with just 14 of them – compared to 22 in Tokyo or 27 in Rio 2016 – Team Great Britain was only the third-best-placed European nation behind fifth-placed hosts France (16 gold medals) and the Netherlands (15 gold medals) in sixth place.

Anson admitted it was a cause for reflection, but with 65 medals in 18 sporting disciplines – which no other country has achieved apart from the top two – the total is still an improvement of one medal on three years ago and on a par with that of London 2012.

“It’s frustrating to be seventh in the medal table, but we have to first celebrate the many amazing moments, the way the athletes won their medals,” said Anson. “It’s about that continuous fine-tuning, figuring out what you can do better to move forward. Being in the middle of the medal table behind the USA and China feels incredibly competitive.”

In some traditionally strong disciplines, such as rowing, there was a return to form in Paris, and new territory was broken with Ellie Aldridge, the first Olympic champion in kitesurfing.

Kate Shortman and Izzy Thorpe won Great Britain’s first Olympic medal in synchronised swimming and Toby Roberts became Team GB’s first medallist in sport climbing by winning gold in the bouldering and lead combined event.

“When you win in 18 sports, something has gone right,” Anson said. “The breadth of success is incredibly important in terms of the resonance it has across the country, the impact it has on communities and how it gets people back into sports.”

“There were near misses, but also Adam Peaty had Covid when he was swimming and Kate French had to pull out of the modern pentathlon because of stomach problems. There’s nothing you can do about that, and Katie Archibald tripped in the garden and broke three bones in her ankle (before the Games). It’s sad that she’s not here, but Katie is probably the best in the world in women’s endurance cycling.

“UK Sport, the national governing bodies and ourselves will sit back at home and say: ‘Is it sport by sport, are these individual issues or is it something more systematic?'”

The United States finished the Paris Olympics once again at the top of the medal table, but needed a win in the final event, women’s basketball – a title the Americans have won at every Olympic Games since 1996 – to narrowly edge China on the final day.

In the final table, the USA and China were tied with 40 gold medals, with the Americans leading the way with a total of 126 medals (44 silver, 42 bronze), while China had 91 medals (27 silver, 24 bronze).

Japan (20 gold) and Australia (18 gold), who celebrated their most successful Games, took third and fourth place, followed by France and the Netherlands.

Great Britain’s tally was boosted by two late bronze medals on the final day for Emily Campbell in the women’s over 81kg weightlifting and Emma Finucane in the women’s individual sprint at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome.

Campbell, who finished on the podium with a personal best, entertained spectators with an impromptu cartwheel at the South Paris Arena to become the first British weightlifter to win two Olympic medals in over half a century, having taken silver three years ago. “It was a tough field today, the standard was so much higher compared to Tokyo,” she said.

Finucane, who had already won a gold medal in the team sprint and a third place in the keirin, became the first British woman in 60 years to win a hat-trick of medals at a single Olympic Games since Mary Rand took bronze in the women’s individual sprint in 1964. “Of course I would have loved to win that gold medal, but gold and two bronzes are more than I could have ever dreamed of,” said the 21-year-old.

Bryony Page, who won gold in trampoline gymnastics, and Alex Yee, who triumphed in the triathlon, were the flag bearers for the British team at a closing ceremony that invited an audience of more than 71,000 people to imagine a world without the Olympics by plunging them into darkness and then setting their rediscovery in the City of Light to music.

Others chosen by their countries to enter the stadium carrying national flags included the two boxers involved in the gender equality dispute: Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting, representing Chinese Taipei (Taiwan).

Artistic director Thomas Jolly’s story arc strongly suggested that Paris had brought about a rebirth of the Olympic Games after the Covid-ridden experience three years ago.

There was a record number of visitors: 9.5 million tickets were sold to spectators from 222 countries. The organizers said that 62% of ticket buyers were French. The largest international buyers came from the UK, the USA, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

The closing ceremony, entitled “Records”, also included the medal ceremony for the women’s marathon, as a nod to the fact that Paris was the first race to have parity in the number of men’s and women’s events.

It started with Léon Marchand, the pool’s 22-year-old local hero, who won four gold medals, set four Olympic records and then helped the French team win bronze in the 4×100-meter individual medley by retrieving the flame in a lantern from the Olympic cauldron in the Jardin des Tuileries and bringing it to the stadium.

There was a minor glitch that night when the athletes were asked to enter the stadium after an early light show, but ended up on a stage where the French indie group Phoenix was due to play. “Dear athletes, please leave the stage,” the announcer asked them.

They moved on and the show went on, ending with a handover to LA, with Cruise falling on a tightrope from the roof of the stadium to the theme song from Mission Impossible before taking the Olympic flag from star gymnast Simone Biles, putting it on the back of a motorcycle and driving out of the stadium.

Afterwards, there were performances in LA by the American rapper Snoop Dogg and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, which were broadcast on the big screens in the stadium.

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, who is stepping down next year, said the Games had created a “culture of peace” at a time of conflict. Tony Estanguet, chairman of the Paris 2024 organising committee, said a nation of “inveterate complainers” could not stop singing.

Sebastian Coe, the former middle-distance runner and current president of World Athletics, had earlier indicated on Sunday that he would run for Bach’s post. He said: “The opportunity has arisen and of course I have to think about it. I would consider it.”