The scale was also reduced compared to past ceremonies as athletes were required to leave the Olympic Village 48 hours after their competitions finished.

[3] The proceedings combined the formal ceremonial closing of this international sporting event (including closing speeches,[4] the parade of athletes[5] and the handover of the Olympic flag[6]) with an artistic spectacle to showcase the culture and history of the current and next host nation (France) for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

[10] The ceremony gave a chance for athletes to experience a day in a Tokyo park, included a "moment of remembrance", featuring cultural dances and folk songs from the three national ethnic groups of Japan, and had references to the 1964 Summer Olympics.

[13] The document was based upon feedback from experts and opinions of the Japanese public[14] and includes the foundational elements for the positioning and overall concept of the four ceremonies.

[21] Since March 2021, Takayuki Hioki, managing director of Sports Branding Japan,[22] has been the Deputy Chief Ceremonies Officer and Executive Producer.

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach and Crown Prince Fumihito entered the stadium while a theme from the film Tokyo Story played.

[45][46] (JST 20:01) The Japanese flag entered into the stadium carried by six people to the music of "Tokyo Story" by Takashi Yoshima: among these were 4 Olympic champions, the winner of the 60 kg event in judo, Naohisa Takato, the first Youth Olympic champion in breaking, Ramu Kawai, the swimmer Yui Ohashi, who won two gold medals on this Games: the first in women's 400 metres individual medley and another on the 200 metre medley and the artistic gymnast Takeru Kitazono winner of five gold medals on the 2018 Youth Olympic Games and a silver medal on team event on this senior games.

The two non-athletes were the doctor Hiroyuki Yokota who worked as medical during the games and the fashion model Yano Amane who uses a leg prosthetic.

Various funeral and mourning rituals performed across Japan were presented at this ceremony in memory of those who died in this exceptionally extended five-year Olympic cycle and also in honor of all those passed around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic.

[54] The Paris 2024 presentation was two pre-recorded films, ended with around 2 minutes of live footage of a special celebration at the Trocadéro, welcoming the comeback of the Modern Olympics to the birthplace of Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the Olympic Movement, in front of the iconic Eiffel Tower at the Trocadéro, Paris (which will serve as the Opening Ceremonies main venue).

[56] The anthem was also performed by musicians simulating a typical day in Paris and place in many known places across the city, as the choices made to represent all the values of the French Republics and specific points of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games, such as the roof of Stade de France (which will host athletics, football, rugby 7's and the closing ceremonies) as the main venue of the Games, the Escalier Daru at the Louvre museum main entrance, where musicians played xilophones ahead of the giant sculpture of the Winged Victory of Samothrace is placed, referring to the return of the Olympic Games of the Modern Era to the city where the modern Olympics ideals were born making a link with the ancient Greece and the fact that the goddess Niké appears on the side of the crown of all Summer Olympic medals, the Place du Vert-Galant symbolizing that these games will be green and respect the environment, Pont Neuf (as the oldest standing structure at the city, as a signal that traditional and modern values can walk together), La REcyclerie (symbolizing innovation, renewal and the vision of the future for the Games and that this specific edition will be more sustainable, innovative and cleaner than ever as far as possible) and the last place was the Skatepark, Diderot at the Seine-Saint-Denis comune (this place symbolizes the concept of world reunion, youth as skateboarding is the youngest sport in the Games's program and that they will be the first, after the COVID-19 pandemic and that the city of Paris and France are always reinventing themselves with youthness, and always accompanies the modernity tendencies with a space of innovation and the fact that these will be 100% urban and sustainable games, hosted within the present urban space and that area will be the main hotspot of the Games.).

But, due to bad weather conditions and the high wind speed in the Trocadèro region this cannot happen (as the tower has several functions as a relay for different communication types at the city and also houses the antennas that are used by the flight controllers of the Airports of the Paris Metropolitan Region and the railway system of the entire country, as the flag may interfere with the signals and their operations, in case it gets stuck in the structure), their unfurl moment cannot happen, as the flag was curled up on Tower structure.

[60][61][62] After the film, French Olympic athletes who returned from Tokyo after their competitions were held in the first week of the Games appeared, such as judokas Clarisse Agbegnenou and Teddy Riner with medals,[63] who had returned from Tokyo were at an open-air party with 6000 people watching the closing ceremony at the Trocadéro in celebrating the handover from Tokyo to Paris and the Olympics' return to Paris as the Patrouille de France flew over the Eiffel Tower, with smoke in the national colours of blue, white and red streaming across the Parisian skies, while young performers take to the stage performing breakdancing, a sport that will debut in the Olympic programme in Paris.

Finally, French President Emmanuel Macron appeared live from the top of the Eiffel Tower with some young athletes and invited the world to the Games, declaiming the French version of the new Olympic Motto, "Plus vite, Plus haut, Plus fort – Ensemble" ("Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together") starting the ending of the Paris 2024 segment.

[67] Seiko Hashimoto, President of the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games spoke to the athletes "There are no words to describe what you have achieved.

It will remain alight in the hearts of people all over the world as we continue to hope for peace in the spirit of Ekecheiria, a tradition unbroken from the ancient Olympic Games."

[70] IOC President Thomas Bach thanked the volunteers for an "unprecedented Olympic Games" and said that Japanese people can be "extremely proud of what you have achieved".

[70][71] After the presentation and closing speeches, actress Shinobu Otake (with the Suginami Children's Chorus) appeared, simulating an astronomy class in allusion to sci-fi movies and comics as they sang the iconic and popular song, "A Stroll Among Stars" composed by Kenji Miyazawa.

After the song ended, an electronic version of Claude Debussy's Clair de lune performed by Isao Tomita started playing, the cauldron's flame was extinguished through a "telekinesis simulation" (the cauldron was simulated to have been extinguished manually as it was impossible to do so in real life) in which the children and the teacher were making a sign of gratitude, shortly thereafter, the structure in which the fire had been burning for the past 16 days closed and reverted to its original shape.

Hashimoto stated in a press interview that the flame would "quietly go out", which he felt that "It was an apt description of a dignified and low key Ceremony which conveyed a sense of gratitude that the Games had been able to take place at all.

"[50] Dominic Patten of Deadline Hollywood argued that the ceremony was an "uneven mixtape" of contrasts, comparing the low-key "celebration of the culture of the Asian power and brow moping acknowledgement of the pandemic" to the jubilant Paris segment, as well as cliché-filled speech of Thomas Bach.

He stated, "The updated Olympic motto of 'faster, higher, stronger – together' fits with how sport is covered and contextualised at this moment in history: inclusion, diversity, justice and a duty of care to the athletes must be taken into consideration as much as performance."