Winter Olympics 2018: closing ceremony – as it happened

More fireworks, and that’s your lot. The closing ceremony is over, and the 2018 Winter Olympics is done. Thanks for reading both today and over the last couple of weeks. It’s been frequently baffling, but for the most part very good fun. Cheers!

Oh, no, wait, another DJ is on - Martin Garrix, who it sort of feels like I should have heard of. Very Guetta, this.

Looks like we’re going to be played out by DJ Raiden, who at first glance appears to be the Korean version of David Guetta. A load of athletes and volunteers dash out onto the arena and have a dance.

And now a giant snowflake is projected across the arena, which then turns into a series of smaller, but still quite big snowflakes which run up the ramp to the Olympic flame at the top of the stadium. And the flame is extinguished. Call me twee and sentimental, but that was pretty good.

Fireworks! Loads of them. Big ones. EXO’s performance concludes, and now the five children from the opening ceremony bring out what appear to be small glowing globes, followed by a giant, wrapped up pentagonal present. Which opens, slowly, like a flower on a time-lapse, to reveal a giant snowglobe. Presumably bought in a giant Pyeongchang giftshop. If anyone is out there and fancies buying me a giant fridge magnet, I’ll PayPal you the money.

And here are EXO, as mentioned earlier. White jackets, black ties and black strides, the first thing to note that these flamboyant mavericks appear to be subverting the traditional boyband member number of five, or four when one gets bored/too famous/develops a crippling ‘nervous exhaustion’ condition. There are eight of these guys. Eight!

And Bach declares the games closed. Done. Over for another four years. Well, ish - still a bit more of this ceremony to go.

Some athletes are wheeled out by Bach, including Lindsey Vonn and - yes, there he is - Pita Taufatofua, top off and all oiled up. They make a sort of heart gesture for a nice photo op.

“These are the games of new horizons,” says Bach. “I congratulate you for showing new horizons.” All very lofty stuff this, but you are left with the faint idea that this is all just big talk that ultimately won’t mean a great deal.

“The Olympic games are an homage to the past and an act of faith to the future.” Thomas Bach is up giving his speech now - nice line.

He gives the idea of North and South Korea competing together and generally being pals a big play, and hopes for peace on the peninsula. Which if - and it’s an if the size of that whale the Chinese presentation projected onto the stadium - all of that wasn’t just big talk and lip service, might be the lasting legacy of the games. If.

“All of you are truly winners,” says that organising president, Lee Hee-beom. All except...well, let’s not be cruel. He offers his consolation and apologies for all those who suffered injuries or had accidents, in particular...well, let’s not be cruel.

The president of the Pyeongchang organising committee is now up to give his speech. He quotes ‘parting is such sweet sorrow’ from Romeo & Juliet.

Obviously, the Chinese presentation included skating pandas.

The Chinese bit of the ceremony is still going on. The Tron dancers conclude, and we have a montage of people enjoying wintery times in Beijing and insisting that we look forward to 2022. As an aside, the temperature in the city earlier today was a decidedly un-wintery sounding 13 degrees.

Just to briefly return to CL, the Korean rapper with the American accent, here’s an explanation that obviously I should’ve thought of earlier.

The Chinese bit of the ceremony now, which looks a little like a budget version of Tron, but with - for reasons someone smarter than me might be able to explain - a giant whale projected across the arena. Rollerbladers stand in for ice skaters.

The Chinese anthem is played. The camera cuts to the Chinese dignitaries in the stands singing along, and Ivanka Trump manages to get in shot. Cool. You briefly forget about that family and then POW, right back in your face at the moment you least expect.

The IOC president and the respective mayors of Pyeongchang and Beijing (hosting next time, of course) are here for the handover ceremony. Thomas Bach gives the flag a big wave, and hands it over to Jining Chen. Flashbacks here of Boris Johnson even managing to look like a robotic embarrassment when doing this after the 2008 summer games.

After that, the national anthem of Greece, followed by the Olympic anthem, the latter performed by an 11-year-old who won Korea’s version of ‘The Voice’. This closing ceremony has been odd in as much as it’s been quite fragmented - brief performances of dance/music and then a screeching gear-shift to a solemn presentation of something or other. Perhaps it’s sensible to break things up a bit more.

Now a performance by CL, a big star in Korea it says here. Rather incongruously she’s rapping in English and asks ‘Where my bad girls at?’ sounding a little like she’s from Brooklyn, rather than Seoul.

The volunteers are now being celebrated, and two new members to the IOC athletes council are introduced - Emma Terho, a Finnish ice hockey player, and Kikkan Randall, an American cross-country skier. Both mothers, and apparently one of their priorities is to get more childcare for athletes at the games, which can only be a good thing.

Pictures, pictures, pictures. A selection of the best images from the final day of the games.

‘The Axis of New Time.’ A performance of lighting and modern dance, to signify...well, what I’m not entirely certain, but there’s lots of flashing, which will presumably be pretty heavy for anyone with a hangover.

Visually extremely impressive though. The entire middle, circular bit of the arena is basically being used as a giant screen, onto which is projected various forms of black and white light patterns, from a sort of swirling concentric circles effect to squares which the dancers leap about on, to an elaborate group of dots which seem to make the entire surface undulate.

Now there’s the men’s 50km cross-country skiing, which was won by Finland’s Iivo Niskanen. Silver medallist Alexander Bolshunov is wearing jeans. Maybe the OAR lot have to bring their own kit.

Some medals are being handed out, presumably because these were the last events and they didn’t have a proper chance to do so after their completion. Firstly the women’s 30km mass start cross-country skiing, won by Norway’s Marit Bjoergen. This one takes her lifetime medal tally to eight gold, four silver and three bronze. Which isn’t bad at all. Indeed, she’s the most decorated athlete in the history of the winter games.

She said: “It has been hard to understand, thinking that I make history, but today it was more important for me to do a good race. I came to this Olympics to take one individual gold medal, and today I had the chance.

“It’s incredible to finish my Olympic career like this, there were lots of feelings the last hundred meters, and I‘m really happy, it’s hard to understand what I have done, from my first Olympics in Salt Lake until now, it’s been incredible.”

A spot of breaking news, which could be quite big. From Reuters:

Members of a high-level North Korean delegation visiting South Korea for the closing ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics said North Korea was open to talks with the United States, the South’s presidential office said.

In a meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in an undisclosed location in Pyeongchang, the North’s delegation also said developments in relations between the two Koreas and those between North Korea and the United States should go hand in hand, said the Blue House in a statement.

We now have a graphic of the turtle swimming/flying through clouds and psychedelic colours, which sort of looks like a late-90s Microsoft screensaver. Apparently it’s to signify the memories of these games flying up to the heavens, which is a bit heavy.

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The athletes parade is done. Now to that giant turtle from the opening ceremony, which is trotted out again.

It was mentioned earlier that Billy Morgan’s celebrations were big. Here’s a story about him riding around the Olympic village in a shopping trolley, and his dad shooting himself. Which isn’t actually as grim as it sounds.

Morgan, who also made headlines four years ago at the Sochi Games after dancing with a toilet seat around his neck after the closing ceremony, admitted he was a chip off the old block. “Everyone knows him as Mad Eddie because he is a bit of loose dude,” he conceded. “He’s an engineer so he made some crazy stuff in his day. Once he even shot himself with a booby trap – he was in the papers for that.”

“We had burglars come into our house,” he added by way of explanation. “It wasn’t actually going to be a booby trap to hurt them, just to go ‘bang!’ if they climbed over the fence. But he shot himself in the stomach with a 12-gauge cartridge. He was like testing it out and fiddling with it and, yeah, he had to go to hospital.”

And here are the Koreans, marching in as one (sort of), many waving that combined flag with a white background and the Korean peninsula in light blue. Some are wearing Olympic ring glasses, and naturally when a couple see the cameras they dab.

The British team come out. Dom Parsons is there, medal around his neck. A few other medallists too. Obviously they’re generally the most understated lot so far.

Hats off to whoever was in charge of organising all this. The logistics are mind-boggling. I had trouble arranging four people getting to the same pub last night.

French figure skating pair Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres walk into the arena with the latter holding the former above his head, as they might in one of their routines. The show-offs.

It’s a fairly loose procession of the flag-bearers into the stadium. They then form a circle in the middle and gently wave their flags, as the other athletes file in. Heavy Canadian presence.

The obvious joy on the faces of these athletes is pretty wonderful. Whether they’ve won or lost, the tension is over and they are just celebrating the fact that they’re Olympians.

Here come the flags. Apparently Billy Morgan, who won bronze yesterday and carries the British flag, went large with his celebrations. There’s something delightful about these athletes parading before the world while nursing a powerful hangover.

Montage! This is the stuff. You can be as cynical as you like, but if you love sport but don’t love a montage then there’s something wrong with you. A compilation of the best action from the games is played as we await the parade of athletes. Tears, joy, tears of joy - it’s all here.

A precocious 13-year-old emerges to with an electric guitar to play - sorry, wail, shred, noodle - an interpretation of ‘Winter’ from Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’. It’s a little odd, then a post-rock band emerges on a deus from beneath the ice, surrounded by traditional musicians, to play...well, I fear I don’t know. It’s quite impressive, but it basically seems like the equivalent of rolling out Mogwai and a bunch of Morris dancers: not un-entertaining, but definitely weird.

The Korean flag is brought into the arena by a group of children who appear to be wearing hats with cats ears. They then form a choir to sing the national anthem. The children are our future.

The presidents of the IOC and South Korea - Thomas Bach and Moon Jae-in respectively - are introduced. The announcer makes sure to get in that Bach won a gold medal for fencing at the 1976 summer games. They know what’s good for them.

The performers out there are dressed all in white, with splashes of primary colours doused liberally over their outfits. It’s a bit like those hoodies you see in the Topman sale.

They gather to form the Olympic rings, which is always an impressive bit of choreography, and then we have our first fireworks of the ceremony. Big ones. Presumably that will be a repeated theme.

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The ‘theme’ will apparently be the transition from winter to spring. Expect heavy depictions of people putting their big coats in the back of the wardrobe.

And the show begins. A giant countdown in the middle of the arena goes from ten to zero, and a collection of skiers and skaters, erm, ski and skate into the middle.

This closing ceremony isn’t about mere sport. Oh no. It’s also weird pop music, obviously. Here’s Martin Belam on EXO, the Korean boyband who will play for your pleasure.

A couple of updates from earlier, if you missed them. The upstart Germans lost 4-3 in overtime to ‘Russia’ for the men’s hockey gold, while a controversial Korean general is in town, and the people aren’t happy.

One thing you won’t be seeing today is a Russian flag. Those plucky band of stateless warriors the Olympic Athletes from Russia will not be marching under their colours, as Sean Ingle reports.

Hello world, and welcome to coverage of the Winter Olympics closing ceremony. What surrealism awaits? What sort of interpretive dance will we be treated to? Will that Tongan chap take his top off again? Not to get all Clare Balding on you from the off, but the Great Britain flag will be carried by snowboarder Billy Morgan, who won bronze earlier in the games. Stay tuned for everything else.