Sports
France Wins Over Skeptics With Olympic Games That Showcase Paris
- After inauspicious start, the Games catch on with viewers
- City avoids security issues with thousands of police on patrol
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As Tom Cruise rappelled from the roof of Paris’s Stade de France on Sunday night to seize the Olympic flag and pass it on to Los Angeles for the next Games, the French officials watching could finally breath a sigh of relief.
After years of preparations and a great deal of skepticism — most notably from Parisians themselves — the first Olympic Games in the French capital in a century had blossomed into a popular success. A record 9.5 million tickets were sold for contests held across the city, often beside the city’s famous monuments.