Paris set for ‘most spectacular Paralympic Games’

Paris has promised a Games to remember as it gets ready to host the 2024 Paralympics.

After the delayed Tokyo Games in 2021 had to be held without fans because of the Covid pandemic, and Rio 2016 was dogged by financial issues, the pressure is on Paris to deliver an event to rival or even better the London 2012 Games.

Wednesday’s opening ceremony at 19:00 BST will be focused on the Place de la Concorde, with the first of the 549 gold medals to be awarded the following day.

Action will conclude with the closing ceremony at the Stade de France on Sunday, 8 September.

Nearly two million tickets have been sold, with about 500,000 still available. After the success of the Paris Olympics, organisers say this is only half-time.

The Paris Games will feature a record number of delegations and female athletes. There will also be television coverage in more territories than ever before.

“I often say that these will be the most spectacular Paralympic Games ever, and I believe it in my heart,” said International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons.

France has never previously hosted a summer Paralympics, although it did stage the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville.

Great Britain are represented by 215 athletes in Paris across 19 sports – a slight reduction on the 227 who competed in Tokyo – with 116 men and 99 women.

The oldest British representative is 54-year-old canoeist Jeanette Chippington, who first represented ParalympicsGB at the 1988 Games in Seoul. The youngest is swimmer Iona Winnifrith, aged 13, while 14-year-old table tennis player Bly Twomey is also part of the squad.

Leading the British medal hopes is Sarah Storey, competing at her ninth Games and aiming to take her gold medal tally to 19. The 46-year-old will feature in the cycling road race and time trial, as she focuses on road events rather than track competitions.

British hopes in the velodrome include Kadeena Cox and Jody Cundy among a strong team, while in athletics Hannah Cockroft aims to continue her dominance of the T34 100m and 800m and add to her seven Paralympic golds.

Sammi Kinghorn is also a major British medal hope on the track, and Will Bailey will aim to win table tennis gold again after he did so at Rio 2016.

Swimmer Alice Tai is back after missing Tokyo through injury and having her right leg amputated below the knee last year, while Para-archer Jodie Grinham will be 28 weeks pregnant when she competes on Friday.

In wheelchair tennis, 30-time Grand Slam champion Alfie Hewett aims to finally claim his first Paralympic gold, while in Para-triathlon former schoolmates Lauren Steadman and Claire Cashmore will once again compete for gold following an intense race at Tokyo 2020 – which Steadman won.

After an Olympics where France finished fifth in the medal table, the hosts want to carry that momentum into the Paralympics, both in terms of the sporting competition and the atmosphere surrounding the event.

Among their hopes for gold is Para-triathlete Alexis Hanquinquant, one of the French flagbearers at the opening ceremony. He is seeking to retain his title from Tokyo in the PTS4 category.

“The Olympic Games were a huge success, with lots of spectators, great enthusiasm and a great atmosphere. Of course, we’re all hoping to experience that at the Paralympic Games too,” said Hanquinquant.

“We’ve got some iconic sites, and we’re going to get an eyeful. Paris is the most beautiful city in the world. I think we’re going to have a pretty exceptional Paralympic Games.

“The first leg is over, now there’s the second leg. Come and cheer us on, you won’t be disappointed. The party goes on.”

Hanquinquant and the organisers will hope the River Seine is not an issue during the Paralympics, after the men’s Olympic triathlon was delayed by a day and training sessions were cancelled because of poor water quality.

Among the big global names in Paris is Brazil’s Petrucio Ferreira, the fastest Paralympian in the world, who will be hoping to retain his T47 100m title. His world record stands at 10.29 seconds.

Germany’s Markus Rehm – known as the Blade Jumper – is going for his fourth Paralympic long jump title in the T64 category.

His world record of 8.72m is the ninth longest jump of all time. His 2024 best is 8.44m – a distance which would have won Olympic silver in Paris and gold at the previous four Games.

Also in Para-athletics, Valentina Petrillo is set to become the first openly transgender athlete to compete at the Paralympics, having been selected to represent Italy in the women’s T12 classification for athletes with visual impairments.

Petrillo, who transitioned in 2019 and will run in the 200m and 400m, told BBC Sport that her participation at the Games would be an “important symbol of inclusion”.

However, in 2021, more than 30 female athletes signed a petition that was sent to the president of the Italian Athletics Federation and the ministries for Equal Opportunities and Sport challenging Petrillo’s right to compete in women’s races.

As with the Olympics, Russia and its ally Belarus are banned from sending athletes to the Games amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.

However, some Russian and Belarusian athletes are allowed to take part as neutrals – the Neutral Paralympic Athletes (NPA) delegation will feature up to 90 competitors from Russia and eight from Belarus.

All NPA were independently vetted to ensure they have not supported the war and are not contracted to the military.

There will be eight athletes representing the Paralympic Refugee Team with Zakia Khudadadi taking to the mat in the K44 -47kg Para-taekwondo event on the first day of action on Thursday. Born in Afghanistan, she represented her country in Tokyo after being safely evacuated in the days prior to the Games.

Three countries – Eritrea, Kiribati and Kosovo – will be represented in the Paralympics for the first time.