Tokyo 2020: Olympic torch goes out after closing ceremony marks end of Games – as it happened

Right, it is time to extinguish this live blog which, like the Olympic flame, has been burning brightly since 23 July. Thank you to everybody who has contributed to it – both here at the Guardian and to those of you reading wherever you are in the world. We hope you enjoyed the coverage and that the posts struck the right tone throughout what has been a unique Olympics during a pandemic. If you like what we do you can consider supporting our journalism here. The sporting action is not over in Tokyo, however. Put a date in your diary for 24 August, when the Paralympics opening ceremony begins. I will leave you with Martin Belam’s Tokyo 2020 Olympics briefing. As Martin says, farewell and arigato.

I will be shutting down this liveblog shortly but before I do have one last peek at the medal table. Eighty-six nations won medals and each athlete took some recycled mobile phone parts home with them, as you can see in this video.

We have another belting gallery here, which sums up the lengths to which athletes went to get in shape for the Olympics while often being restricted to training at home during various Covid lockdowns. There’s also a reveal on whether their creative training methods paid off.

Thanks to those readers in Japan who have emailed in to offer opinions on the Tokyo Games. Rebecca King is another who has summed up her thoughts on the subject very well.

Was that success – and the effect it had on the nation – worth it?

“Obviously, that question can’t be answered yet. The ‘Japanese athletes winning’ snippets will be on TV endlessly from now until, well, at least Paris. But the buzz will fade and the bills have to be paid. Fortunately, I do think the bubbling of the athletes and personnel seems to have worked. Bach did piss everyone off beforehand by saying there was ‘zero risk’, which was a stupid thing to say. However, coronavirus cases were already rising as the State of Emergency declarations are toothless and many people are back in the office and many unvaccinated people are going out to eat and socialise. Trains had already started to fill up again.

“Having said that, the decision to hold the Games has led to the public getting even more complacent and there was a report of a game of golf with a lunch party held by some members of a board of education whose excuse was: ‘The Tokyo Olympics is being held by implementing thorough infection prevention measures. We decided that if we also took measures, we could play golf, which is also a sport.’

“Colleagues have commented on the lack of spectators in the stadium, but that spectators are allowed to the national high school baseball contest. There has been a general lack of social distancing throughout the pandemic anyway – although most people wear masks in and outdoors – so some people, not just the IOC, thought spectators should be allowed. Mainly people with tickets, no doubt! Of course, doctors were saying it should not be cancelled. As were most of the public, and there were quite a lot of angry voices until Japan started doing so well. The idiom ‘change one’s tune’ came up in one of my uni classes and I gave the example: ‘Last week – “It is a terrible idea to hold the Games”; this week – “Wow! Gold rush! The Japanese athletes are great!”

“I did think the event should have been cancelled even though I had three tickets. My velodrome one was still valid – I hadn’t asked for a refund just in case. My Japanese partner was adamant he was not going. Until a couple of days into the Games, that is. Then he got all excited and said, ‘Shall we go?’ So we did. I am fully vaccinated but I’ve not told many people I attended an event as I’m not sure how that will be viewed.

“It was sad seeing the volunteers still trying to be upbeat outside the station and venue when there was no one to help. It was weird not being able to cheer, and there was not much of an atmosphere in the velodrome as it was only about 15% full. I have really enjoyed the last two weeks and it was so nice having something else to think about and read about aside from coronavirus. I’m not looking forward to going back to the real world. I’m biased, as I’ve always loved the Olympics and I attended an event, but I’m glad they went ahead. I certainly changed my tune.”

A legacy of the Tokyo Games will be the light that has been shone on the mental health of athletes amid the intense pressure they are put under when scrutinised by peers, judges, the mainstream media and those on social media. In Tokyo, where competitors were isolated amid the pandemic, that burden of expectation seemed greater than ever. Barney Ronay wrote very well on the subject. In case you missed it, this piece is definitely worth a read and applies to other young people in sport away from the Olympics.

So many athletes emerge from an industrialised version of their sport, a system that isn’t play or enjoyment, but a machine designed for winning. How is that supposed to play out at the current Olympics when athletes have been isolated, unable to train, and asked to emerge suddenly into the light and perform?

Another view from Japan: “Being in Tokyo I feel incredibly conflicted,” writes Andrew Wolff. “I have an Olympic gold medalist grandfather and I’m a natural fan of the Games who was originally very excited about them going ahead. On the one hand they have delivered a great sporting spectacle and have not been the superspreader event once feared. On the other hand, outside the Tokyo bubble we have 150 Tokyoites on ventilators fighting for their lives and our highest caseloads yet by a large margin. The Olympics definitely set the tone that it was OK for people to let their guard down and I find that difficult to reconcile.”

I love this. Emerson Andrade, the brother of Brazil’s gold and silver-winning gymnast, Rebeca Andrade, describes managing to be a considerate neighbour even while dealing with the whirlwind of emotions he was feeling while cheering his sister on at 5.30am in Brazil.

We didn’t want to scream too loudly because of the time of day … We were over the moon but we had to control ourselves because of the neighbours.

You can read more about what it was like for family members left behind as they tuned in to watch their loved ones compete at Tokyo 2020 here.

Let’s throw things forward three years then shall we? I think the Olympics have benefited from the inclusion of surfing, BMXing and skateboarding even though these sports provoked much tutting when first announced. You may disagree, but I think they have helped connect a younger audience to the Olympics and shown the world that those who compete in these sports make just as many sacrifices and work every bit as hard as more regular athletes do to perfect their skills. And in Paris we will see breakdancing join the show.

Paris 2024 organisers say the Olympics will “set a new standard for inclusive, gender-balanced and youth-centred games” and adding breakdancing is part of the expansion of the so-called “urban” programme. Equality will play a key role in 2024, too, with Paris aiming to be the first Games to reach a 50% split between male and female athletes, edging Tokyo which managed 48.8%.

William Fotheringham has penned his thoughts on the performance of Team GB’s Olympic cyclists in which the Kennys remained the golden couple of British cycling – but I particularly like this line:

The plethora of BMX metalware could hardly have been predicted, but will give huge impetus to a discipline which is the best entry-point to bike racing for most urban-dwelling youngsters.

Trevor Kew has emailed in with his thoughts – and they’re very interesting too. “For most people here in Japan, the Olympics have been a TV show just like in other countries, albeit with some familiar scenic backdrops. Obviously almost all people here agree that these Games should never have gone ahead, but at least there was something exciting and distracting on TV for a couple of weeks. But I don’t think many people here will really remember these Games as the Japanese Olympic Games or Tokyo Games.

“I live near many of the Olympic venues, many of which are perched out on artificial islands in Tokyo Bay, which kind of reminded me of the tiny Dutch outpost of Dejima off of Nagasaki, which was the only place foreigners could visit in Japan between 1620-1853 (Japanese were forbidden from leaving Japan as well). Some foreign journalists’ articles about Japan during the Olympics kind of reminded me of some of the diaries I’ve read written by the insular denizens of Dejima … so close to Japan and yet so far.

“What a shame that visitors to this wonderful country couldn’t experience it and even more so that the Japanese people and we foreigners who live here and are proud to do so weren’t even able to attend our own party. These Olympics might as well have been played on the moon.”

Thanks Trevor.

The Olympics always give us wonderful images and I think photographers have scaled new heights at these Games as they got creative and found new ways to make shots interesting in the absence of crowds. This gallery is a case in point.

“Show a photographer a reflective surface – be it water, glass, a screen or a visor – and they’ll show you a striking image”

If you’re wondering how the BBC followed coverage of sport’s greatest show on Earth. Well, with Money for Nothing of course! The show in which Sarah Moore renovates old tat for a profit. I miss Lutalo Muhammad. I could listen to his cool, calm voice all day. He’s therapy in taekwondo pundit form. Here he is speaking to Sachin Nakrani in an interview from last week:

Not everybody in a big British sport admin role is feeling happy after the Olympics, mind. UK Athletics’ Christian Malcolm has been forced to defend GB’s athletics performance. GB’s athletics team failed to win a single gold medal for the first time since Atlanta in 1996. His predecessor, Ed Warner, stuck the boot in when he said:

The last time GB came away from a Games without a gold medal was 1996. Twenty-second place overall is grim and compares with third, eighth, fourth and sixth over the past four Games. Even if Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake had held on for gold in the sprint relay, Britain would only have bumped up to 13th spot.

Here’s the full story:

I’d be interested to get a few views from Japan on what you made of the Tokyo Olympics now they have come and gone. Japan performed incredibly well, finishing third in the medal table with 27 golds, 14 silvers and 17 bronze medals. Was that success – and the effect it had on the nation – worth it?

Team GB’s chef de mission, Mark England, has been lavishing praise on his young team to the extent that he believes their performance was the greatest ever by a British Olympic team.

For this team to deliver 65 medals is absolutely extraordinary. The team has made history on the back of the most complex, challenging and most difficult environments that we will ever face, certainly in my lifetime. And I can say that because I’ve been involved in five or six summer Games.

Here’s a composite image of every Team GB medal winner at Tokyo 2020.

And here’s Sean Ingle’s story:

But it’s not quite the end. “Arigato,” is the message displayed on the giant electronic board at the Olympic Stadium as 1,072 fireworks blast off from the roof and create a spectacle of light, sparks and no little smoke. And that really is the end of the closing ceremony, which got the tone just right I think.

There’s time for a bit more performative art, though, in which I think we’re taken forward to a vision of the future in which children are taught the lessons learned at the Tokyo Olympic Games and the legacy they left the people of Japan. I’m taking a punt on the meaning here, though. I think that’s right. The Olympic cauldron, which so far has represented the sun, is now cast as the moon. It’s metallic casing shifts shape and extinguishes the flame. And then all is dark.

The End.

Thomas Bach officially closes the Tokyo Olympic Games but not before a little pat on the back. “We did it! Together!”

Thomas Bach, the IOC president, speaks:

Athletes went faster, went higher and were stronger because they all stood together in solidarity. You inspired us with this unified symbol of sport. And it was even more remarkable because of what you faced in the pandemic. For the first times since the pandemic the world came together. People were united by emotion, sharing moments of joy and inspiration. This gives us hope, this gives us faith in the future. The Olympic Games of Tokyo were the Olympic Games of hope, solidarity and peace. You the Japanese people can be extremely proud of what you achieved. On behalf of all the athletes we say thank you Tokyo, thank you Japan.

Bach continues to pay tribute to the volunteers who made the Games happen and the Japanese authorities who made Tokyo 2020 happen. “Thank you for staying with us on the side of the athletes who were longing for these Olympic Games. Nobody has ever organised a postponed Olympics.”

The Tokyo Olympics organising committee president, Seiko Hashimoto, speaks now to pay tribute to those who made the Games possible and to the Olympic spirit displayed by the athletes, whether experiencing the joy of glory or the bitter pain of defeat. She believes the power on display at Tokyo 2020 will keep the Olympic spirit alive all the way through to Paris 2024. She says Tokyo now can’t wait to host the Paralympics.

We’re on to a montage of various landmarks around Paris that will be used to host events ending, of course, with the Eiffel Tower, where many spectators have gathered to cheer heartily as the Patrouille de France fly by. The plan was to fly the largest ever flag from the tower this afternoon but it was too windy so, alas, that particular stunt will have to wait. Emmanuel Macron greets the world from atop the tower in quite some show. Paris have pulled out all the stops here.

It’s a version of La Marseillaise that has been pre-recorded in various locations around Paris and is slightly quieter then you might expect with plenty of strings. In fact, it sounds like it could have been a Lucasfilm production played over the end credits of Star Wars. Oh, and it ends in space, with Thomas Pesquet playing the saxophone on the international spacestation.

And now the Olympic flag handover session begins to backdrop music that could easily have been plucked from 50 Chillout Lounge Classics. Bach passes the Olympic flag to Hidalgo, who waves it around heartily to applause from the athletes in the stadium. That flag will now be taken to the town hall in Paris, where it will stay for the three years in the leadup to the Games. And now time for the French national anthem La Marseillaise. And who hasn’t got time for the French national anthem?

The first female mayor of Paris, Ana María Hidalgo, is introduced alongside the IOC’s head-honcho Thomas Bach, for the passing of the baton as the focus shifts to the French capital for the buildup to the 2024 Games. But first, the Olympic anthem is sung with gusto by an opera singer is an eyecatching huge electric blue costume. In case you’re not familiar, here it is:

Right, we’re back to some performative dance now, first in the stadium and then a cut away to Hokkaido, in northern Japan, for some traditional dance by the Ainu people. It’s a beautifully shot video and the landscape in Hokkaido is jawdropping, with mountains blending into sea. We’re then taken thousands of miles south for the Eisa dance in the Okinawa islands, a jauntier style in my humble opinion, and then back through central Japan where we’re treated to a snippet of the Awa Dance Festival.

There is a ceremony now to present the athletes who were elected to the International Olympic Committee’s Athletes’ Commission: Pau Gasol, Maja Wloszczowska, Federica Pellegrini and Yuki Ota were voted on to the commission by fellow athletes. Their role is to act as a bridge between athletes and the IOC. Gasol isn’t there but Pellegrini, Wloszczowska and Ota play a role in presenting gifts to volunteers to say thank you for their huge contribution at these Games in which they have put themselves at risk during a pandemic to make Tokyo 2020 happen.

The medal ceremony for the men’s marathon is taking place. Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge stands proud atop the podium wearing his gold medal and outstanding tracksuit (and a huge smile beneath the mask, I hope). He absolutely bossed the race, finishing in 2:08.38 and over a minute ahead of the rest of the field. He’s 36. Will he, at 39, defend his title for a third time at Paris 2024?

Hello, Gregg here. I’m just back from the skatepark, where my daughters have been trying to do tricks and flicks having been inspired to do so after watching Sky Brown. The Olympic Effect, right there. Thanks to Daniel for guiding us through the majority of the closing ceremony while reviewing the trackies on offer. I’m here to take on the last leg and guide these Games home. Let me know what your highlight was? Mine? Probably Kye Whyte and Beth Schriever being brilliant on their BMXs.

But that’s it for me and these Games – thanks all for your company and comments, it’s been an absolute joy. Here’s Gregg Bakowski to see us home.

We now have the medal ceremony for the women’s marathon, won by Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya. But let’s not forget to congratulate whoever designed her team’s stash, which is absolutely banging.

Time for the Greece anthem and raising of the flag. There’s one pole left, which I assume is for the tricolore. Personally, I’d pick Claude Leclochard to perform that part of the ceremony.

It’s big-band Ode to Joy next, the aforementioned Tony Blair’s favourite song (when he thought the audience wanted to hear it was that, on a different occasion it was Sympathy for the Devil). But, as I type that, in comes the accordion, which I imagine, sets up Paris as the host in 2024. Surely we’re getting some Jean-Michel Jarre for the closing ceremony of that.

Right about now, on the wheels of steel, someone say hello to the DJ Matsunaga. He plays looking away, scratches with his elbow and that kind of palaver, then disappears as soon as he arrived, as Milet comes on to cover Edith Piaf’s Hymne à L’amour. Great stuff.

“On the subject of athletes cameraderie,” says Jerry Spring. “Maybe not so many people caught the women’s podium for the combined climbing final. I’d love it if you could share that in the blog … It still brings tears to my eyes for the love, joy and respect between those three wonderful climbers.”

That’s lovely.

Oh my gosh, I’ve just seen one of the great rugs, owned by someone playing in the horn section accompanying the current japery. That with the Nigeria trcky, and we’re really talking.

By the road, it’s raining in Nottingham, where a superb first Test might just be petering out.

“As you mentioned Chris Hoy’s shoes,” says Nick Marshall, “it’s definitely worth referencing Alex Horne and the Horne Section’s ‘Chris Hoy loves a Saveloy’.”

We’ve all our athletes with us now – well, all those still in Toyko, and a light show is underway. It’s pretty spectacular I’ve to say, beautiful colour cascading like waves then waterfall. Then it all comes together into Olympic rings and my seven-year-old bursts in to declare “Wow, that is so pretty, did they make all that just now.” No, I did it earlier,” I assure her. “Daddy, you’re the greatest,” she assures me.

OK, we’ve a new leader. This is the best I’ve seen and by far.

Great Britain, meanwhile, look an absolute mess, you’ll be shocked to learn: shorts with a belt and a miserable white polo shirt with what looks like a bad tatt on the shoulder but is some kind of flag design. Absolute dizgraze.

Japan’s massive are wearing identical trainers, a kind of hot red, which match their jackets. I don’t like the round neck, but the colour is extremely arresting.

“I see some mingling,” says Andrew Cotter, as Australia come in wearing, let’s be real, an absolutely dreadful green and gold polo shirt and white-shorts combo. No.

Here come USA, bouncing about in white trackies. Must do better – when you’ve got blue and red to play with, you’ve got much more scope to do something good – these are too plai.

These Jamaica tracksuits are tremendous – so much so that the team are wearing them as they come in, though it’s a zillion degrees in Toyko,

“The mournful music you mentioned,” begins Xu Yun Liang as I realise I’ve announced a gaping hole in my general knowledge to the world. “That’s the theme from master Ozu’s opus Tokyo Story. I guess it might be equivalent of DJ playing Star Wars theme 7 years later in Los Angeles?”

Fantastic, thanks.

Here come the athletes, some kind of big-band show-tune playing. I daresay some will have taken drink in keeping with ancient tradition, though the customary adult gymnastics may be compromised by the pandemic.

Instead, we get another montage, and my eyeballs are a-sweatin’.

In case you’re wondering, the flag-marching is still going on, representatives of every country emerging to stand in a circle around a rostrum. More news as I get it. I reckon someone should grab the mic, give it “I said a hip-hop, the hippie, the hippie, to the hip, hip-hop and you don’t stop the rockin, to the bang-bang boogie, say up jump the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat”, then see what happens next.

“What’s struck me about these Games,” says James Taylor, “has been the great camaraderie between the athletes and the sheer joy of them being able to compete at an event they must have thought may never happen. It’s been such a difficult 18 months for everyone but I can’t imagine the commitment to train for something that was always in doubt. It’s also been striking for the awareness It’s raised over mental health and the pressure these athletes are under. The human side of sport has really displayed itself at its best.”

Yup, can’t argue with any of that – I can only imagine the terror of thinking they were gone and relief that they weren’t.

Laura Kenny has the union flag, and that seems a solid decision to me – her joy is so compelling and infectious.

Here’s my song of the summer is this – and it’s one for the fantastic Alex Scott. Yes, I’m calling that a segue.