PARIS, France (AFP) — The Paris Olympics won mostly rave reviews from western media after it closed on Sunday, while media in Russia, whose team was excluded because of its war in Ukraine, scoffed at France’s success.

Los Angeles Times sports that columnist Bill Plaschke wondered whether Tinseltown was up to the task of rivalling Paris when it hosts the next Summer Olympics in 2028.

“We have to somehow take greatness and make it even greater,” he wrote, calling the Games in France “a blockbuster Parisian party that was two weeks of pure Hollywood”.

“How on earth can the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics surpass what the world just witnessed in a two-week burst of picturesque rejoicing from the Champ de Mars to the Palace of Versailles?”

The New York Times was generous in its praise of the sporting extravaganza, saying it lifted France from its gloom brought on by political crisis.

“Many are reluctant to let go of its magic: of the adrenaline-fuelled excitement, of the party free of political debate, of the sense of time deliciously suspended, like the glowing Olympic cauldron that has hovered wistfully over the city every night.”

The Guardian of Britain hailed the Games’ message, which it said was “the importance of protecting the spirit of the Games in an uncertain world riven by conflict”.

But Jim White, writing in The Telegraph, said that Paris “could not match the spirit and warmth of London 2012”.

The Italian media was unanimous in its praise, with Corriere della Sera saying Paris had “overcome its fears” despite a prologue marked by “rain, pollution of the Seine, and sabotage”.

In Russia, however, some newspapers found fault.

“The Paris Games weren’t flawless,” said Moskovsky Komsomolets, a pro-Kremlin mass circulation newspaper, stressing it remains unclear who sabotaged France’s high-speed rail network before the opening ceremony.

The newspaper argued that spectators will remember “an endless series of scandals” and not the athletes’ sporting feats or records.

Komsomolskaya Pravda, a pro-Kremlin tabloid, said the competitions in Paris were “the most shameful Olympic Games in history”.

“The Paris 2024 organisers managed to offend hundreds of millions of people with an opening ceremony and a parody of the Last Supper. And then the Olympics became increasingly embroiled in problems, scandals and even crime.”

One of its subheads read: ‘Vomiting athletes, champions with male chromosomes in women’s boxing, and worms in food’.

In Algeria, an editorial in government daily El Moudjahid praised Algerian boxing champion Imane Khelif, who was at the centre of a gender eligibility row at the Paris Games.

“Imane’s victory is also a victory for the oppressed and the excluded but above all it is a victory for the law, which for too long has been trampled by the logic of the powerful who are greedy for domination and adept at double-standard policies.”