King Charles calls Olympians 'an inspiration' in message sent to mark the end of the Paris Games, praising competitors' 'true grit and hard toil'
Great Britain ended the Games with 14 golds, 22 silvers and 29 bronzes. However, Britain ended seventh in the medal table because Japan, Australia, France and the Netherlands all won more golds.
The King has called all Olympians 'an inspiration' and congratulated their 'outstanding successes' in a heartfelt message sent to mark the closing of the Paris Olympics, which will be formally closed at a ceremony tonight.
The monarch singled out their 'raw talent, true grit and hard toil' in the message, which came just hours before the final moments of the Olympic Games in the French capital.
A glittering closing ceremony will take place in the Stade de France at 9pm (8pm BST).
In his full statement he said: 'My wife joins me in sending our warmest congratulations to the competitors and their support teams from Team GB and across the whole Commonwealth, for their many outstanding successes at the Olympic Games in Paris.
'Your achievements, across so many disciplines, were forged from that invaluable combination of raw talent, true grit and hard toil over many years, burnished these past weeks by sportsmanship and team spirit in the finest tradition of the Games.
Great Britain ended the Games with 14 golds, 22 silvers and 29 bronzes. However, Britain ended seventh in the medal table because Japan, Australia, France and the Netherlands all won more golds.
The King has called all Olympians 'an inspiration' and congratulated their 'outstanding successes' in a heartfelt message sent to mark the closing of the Paris Olympics, which will be formally closed at a ceremony tonight.
The monarch singled out their 'raw talent, true grit and hard toil' in the message, which came just hours before the final moments of the Olympic Games in the French capital.
A glittering closing ceremony will take place in the Stade de France at 9pm (8pm BST).
In his full statement he said: 'My wife joins me in sending our warmest congratulations to the competitors and their support teams from Team GB and across the whole Commonwealth, for their many outstanding successes at the Olympic Games in Paris.
'Your achievements, across so many disciplines, were forged from that invaluable combination of raw talent, true grit and hard toil over many years, burnished these past weeks by sportsmanship and team spirit in the finest tradition of the Games.
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00:00First of all I feel incredibly proud of the team. To deliver 65 medals, I think 131 different medalists, a medal on every day of the games, it's just been incredible.
00:10So I think first of all we should celebrate, and I've had so many positive messages from home, it's actually unbelievable because it's clearly resonated in so many different ways at home.
00:20And I think also we've got to celebrate some incredible individual moments, you know if I go back to our eventing guys winning the first gold medal after all the trouble we had in the equestrian world.
00:29Tom Pidcock's moment when he won his gold medal, Alex Yee's moment, Toby Roberts, Briony Page, I just think there's been some incredible moments that we can all remember forever and celebrate.
00:41And that's what we should do first and foremost, and I think that's important. Then we can all take the conversion to gold medals issue and see is there an underlying theme, is it individual sports that have got issues that can be addressed and need to be addressed going forward.
00:57And I think we need to take time to do that properly, that's important, so I think we should go home and digest that. But I would hate it to detract from so many amazing medal moments.
01:07And actually non-medal moments as well, when Emile came fourth in the marathon, I think that was one of the most amazing moments of the games for me because it was such an incredible surprise and such a brilliant performance.
01:19I'll go home and have a holiday, but I think with UK sports, with the individual national governing bodies and the individual sports and ourselves, we can all come together and just make sure we understand what went well, what can be improved going forward.
01:33I don't think we have become bloody, because all the things I've heard from everyone back home and from people out here, it's just incredible celebration of individual feats and team feats. I think we've got to celebrate that, but I think this idea of continued improvement is really important.
01:49Because I think it does work in terms of building a positive energy in the whole country, in terms of making us feel proud of being from the United Kingdom, from Britain, Northern Ireland. So I think we need to invest, we need to improve and we need to keep doing it.
02:04The Aussies have laid down a challenge for LA, I hate coming behind the Australians, they're great people, they're great friends and we should be ahead of them. So we need to focus on that for LA and that will be fun.
02:15In terms of the money being channeled from the lottery and the government, that's really a UK sport. It's their role in life to take that money and channel it to the different sports. I think this is some of the best money we can spend and in the scheme of what we can spend in the country, it's not a lot of money, but it actually achieves incredible things.
02:34I think if you look at the athletes who have won medals out here and the athletes who have participated, they can go back into their communities and have a real impact. They're very, very normal people, humble people who achieve extraordinary things and I think that is something to celebrate. And hopefully their communities back home will embrace them in a way that I think I'm hearing.
02:56We've had more medallists from Northern Ireland than we've ever had before. We've got medallists from Scotland, Wales, from across England. It's been an incredible game in terms of the diversity of sports and the diversity of success, so we should celebrate that first and foremost.