We don’t want ruin the movie magic, but maybe you figured out that Tom Cruise didn’t really fly from Paris to L.A. in a matter of minutes to deliver the Olympic flag (though his stunts were absolutely legit).
But the actual Olympic flag, the one that Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo handed to L.A. mayor Karen Bass during Sunday night’s closing ceremony, is in fact now in L.A. It hitched a ride on a flight to LAX along with Bass, who exited the Delta plane on Monday afternoon waving the rings-emblazoned flag.
She wasn’t the only one to return to the U.S. from Paris: Dozens of members of Team USA filed off the plane as well, including diver Delaney Schnell, volleyball player Micah Maʻa, skateboarder Tate Carew and a bunch of medal-toting athletes—who were happy to pose for plenty of photos, even after the half-day flight.
Bass and LA28 chairperson and president Casey Wasserman met California governor Gavin Newsom on the tarmac, as well as LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover and the organization’s chief athlete officer, swimmer Janet Evans.
We were invited to watch the flag’s arrival from the Delta hangar at LAX (unlike the car-free Olympics, we drove there). And while the above summary is basically all there was to the afternoon, it was inarguably a momentous event: With the Paris Games behind us and the Olympic flag now on American soil, the focus for the Summer Games now turns to the L.A. 2028 Olympics. The LA28 logo—or rather, a few versions of it, including a France-meets-U.S. one and a Delta edition—was posted all around the hangar. Athletes—some with medals dangling around their necks—and staff members in Team USA garb circulated around the space. The Olympics may be over now, but here in L.A., they’re just getting started (in another four years, at least).