And on Friday (August 6), Paris 2024 President Tony Estanguet said: "We have waited a year but we have also waited 100 years for the Olympic flag to return." As Tokyo 2020 comes to a close, Paris 2024 begins to loom large.

Since 1984, the next host city has been called upon to perform at the Closing Ceremony. Over the years, it has become a major focal but sometimes criticised sequence. The appearance of Sydney’s infamous Kangaroos on bicycles in 1996 was much derided, and David Beckham’s misdirected kick from the top of a London bus was also the subject of mirth. Five years ago, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appeared as Super Mario at the Closing Ceremony in Rio’s Maracana.

On Sunday, the French tricolour will be raised to the sound of La Marseillaise and all thoughts will turn to Paris in 2024. A giant flag is set to be flown at the Eiffel Tower, which Estanguet says will be the largest ever flown, while Mayor Ann Hidalgo will receive the ceremonial embroidered handover flag with the five rings. "I can’t wait to bring back the flag to Paris," Hidalgo said.

Made of Korean silk and edged with the Olympic colours, it has been in the possession of the Tokyo city authorities for the last five years. The flag was a gift of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Organising Committee and replaced one presented by 1920 host city Antwerp. The original was presented to the next host city in 1924, Paris.

In 2024, it will be exactly one hundred years since the Parisians last hosted the Games. They were also the last under the Olympic leadership of Baron Pierre de Coubertin. A century ago in 1921, Paris had been chosen in a double award with Amsterdam just as Paris 2024 and 2028 had also been installed as host cities without a vote.

Coubertin executed what he described as the Lausanne manoeuvre. He told the IOC members: "At this moment,  when the reviver of the Olympic Games judges his personal task to be nearly at an end, no one will deny that he is entitled to ask that a special gesture should be made in favour of his native city, Paris.

"I shall appeal to you on this great occasion to sacrifice your preferences and your national interests and agree to award the  9th Olympiad to Amsterdam and proclaim Paris the venue for the 8th."

The centrepiece was the Stade de Colombes, a stadium still in use today as the headquarters of rugby union team Racing Club. It had two covered stands, each seating 10,000, and room for a further 40,000 spectators in the standing areas.

The French set up an Organising Committee that had the additional responsibility of preparing for a winter sports week in the resort of Chamonix, which retrospectively became the first Olympic Winter Games. The organising secretary was a journalist called Frantz Reichel, an athlete at the 1896 Games. IOC member Comte Justinien de Clary was "Commissaire Générale" for the 1924 Games, and the management also included IOC member Albert Glandaz, politician Gaston Vidal, athletics official Joseph Genet and Jules Rimet, later better known as the creator of FIFA’s World Cup.

Forty-five nations were represented in Paris, and at one stage Russian emigres seeking refuge from the Russian revolution lobbied to be allowed to compete. They would arguably have been the first refugee team.

The Games also included "Jeux d’Enfance" or Children’s Games, such as basketball, on the days when the stadium was not used for athletics so they could conceivably claim that 1924 staged the first Youth Olympics.

The football tournament, won by Uruguay, was a revelation. They sailed from Montevideo and made landfall in Spain, where they played nine warm-up matches, before heading to the tournament itself. Inspired by Jose Leandro Andrade, they swept all before them, conceding just two goals in the entire tournament. They beat Yugoslavia 7-0 in their opening match, won 3-0 against the United States, beat the host nation 5-1 and dispatched with the Dutch 2-1 to reach the final, where they scored three in the gold medal match to beat Switzerland.

It was the first of two successive Olympic gold medals for the Uruguay team, and their success was an important factor in convincing FIFA that the first World  Cup tournament should be hosted there in 1930.

The athletics competitions featured cross country for the final time -- the conditions were blinding hot as a number of runners collapsed in the heat. One man remained unfazed by it all. Finland’s Paavo Nurmi, who won an astonishing five gold medals at the 1924 Games in all.

The exploits of 100m gold medallist Harold Abrahams, who won the 100 metres, and Eric Liddell, winner of the 400m, have become more widely known thanks to the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, which was released 40 years ago. 

Meanwhile, American swimmer Johnny Weissmuller won 100m and 400m freestyle gold, before helping the United States win another gold in the 4×200m freestyle relay, and tennis -- the sport did not return to the games until Seoul 1988 -- and rugby union made their last appearances before extended absences.

And in contrast to 2024 when "equality" is certain to be a buzzword, no women took part in athletics in 1924. Such was her frustration, Alice Milliat of France set up separate competitions.

In the end, Paris 1924 served as redemption for the 1900 Paris Games, which were largely overshadowed by a world exposition. And in 2024, Paris might well be the first global event to be staged after the pandemic and offer redemption of a different kind.