This Monday, May 20 marks 100 days before the start of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, which will open on August 28. For the first time, France will host the Summer Paralympic Games.
3 mins
From August 28 to September 8, nearly 4,400 athletes from 182 nations will meet in the French capital. For 11 days, the public will have the opportunity to attend 549 events in 23 disciplines spread over 19 sites, such as Les Invalides for para archery, the Eiffel Tower for blind football, the Champ-de -March for para judo or from the park of the Château de Versailles for para horse riding. Appearing for the first time in 1948 in London, the Paralympic Games summer remain the major event of disabled sports.
“ This is the most important Paralympics of my lifetestifies for RFI Sofyane Mehiaoui,recently qualified for the wheelchair basketball tournament. Even with a disability, you can play high-level sport. »
According to Sofyane Mehiaouithe Paralympics are “ a springboard to show disability » and « lAccessibility difficulties in everyday life “. He adds : ” We also expect recognition. We have our challenges, but sometimes they are not related to disability, but rather to accessibility. » He especially hopes that the Paralympics will be an important factor for integration and that it will be “ madness » in Bercy, place of his competition.
900,000 tickets were sold
At the last count, 900,000 tickets were sold out of the 2.8 million available, the vast majority of which by public actors. A configuration reminiscent of London 2012. In the United Kingdom, everything was decided at the last minute, a bit like in Rio four years later. While in Brazil, the Paralympic Games were shaping up to be a fiasco, it was ultimately the best score in history behind Beijing 2008, thanks to a rush for last minute tickets.
“ Paris 2024 is not just the Olympic Games », recalled Tony Estanguet. The president of the organizing committee of the event “ encourages the French to come to the Paralympic Games “. “ A blind football match at the foot of the Eiffel Tower with tickets from 15 euros, it’s an unforgettable experience », insisted the organizer of the Olympic Games, inviting the public to connect to the tickets.paris2024.org platform. Since the South African phenomenon Oscar Pistorius, whose notoriety exploded during the London Games in 2012 before his conviction for the murder of his partner, the Paralympic Games have struggled to find personalities recognized worldwide by the general public, capable of embodying an event with still limited visibility.
The opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games will take place on Place de la Concorde, preceded by a parade on the Champs-Élysées.
After the conclusion of the Olympic Games, the flame will return for the Paralympic Games. It will be lit in Stoke Mandeville in Great Britain, the historic cradle of Paralympic history: it was there that the first “Stoke Mandeville International Games”, the ancestors of the current Games, were organized in 1952. Then, the flame will cross the Channel to reach Paris and the opening ceremony.
Comments by Sofyane Mehiaoui collected by Olivier Pron