Following an eventful Summer Games in Paris, the city is set to host the Paralympics 2024. This will be the first time that the Paralympic Games will be held in the “City of Lights”.
The Paris Paralympics 2024 will be held from 28 August to 8 September 2024. The multi-sport competition is governed by the International Paralympic Committee. More than 4000 athletes will compete across 549 events in 22 sports in the 17th edition of Paralympics.
Sports & Events
Following are the list of sports and the number of events at Paris Paralympics 2024:
- Archery (9)
- Athletics (164)
- Badminton (16)
- Boccia (11)
- Cycling (51)- Road (34), Track (17)
- Equestrian (11)
- Football 5-a-side (1)
- Goalball (2)
- Judo (16)
- Paracanoe (10)
- Paratriathlon (11)
Venues
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More than half of the venues used in the 2024 Olympics will be used for the Paris Paralympics 2024. All the events at the Paralympics will be held in and around Paris, including the suburbs of Saint-Denis and Versailles, & Vaires-sur-Marne which is just outside the city vicinity.
Here are the event that will take place at Paris Centre zone
| Venue | Events |
| Bercy Arena | Wheelchair Basketball |
| Grand Palais Éphémère | Judo |
| Wheelchair Rugby | |
| Eiffel Tower Stadium (Champ de Mars) | Football 5-a-side |
| Les Invalides | Archery, Para marathon (finish) |
| Grand Palais | Taekwondo |
| Wheelchair Fencing | |
| Pont Alexandre III | Triathlon |
| Stade Roland Garros | Wheelchair Tennis |
| South Paris Arena | Boccia |
| Table tennis | |
| Goalball |
Here are the events that will take place at Outlying venues
| Venue | Events |
| National Olympic Nautical Stadium of Île-de-France (Vaires-sur-Marne) | Para canoe |
| Para rowing | |
| Vélodrome de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines | Cycling (Track) |
| National Shooting Centre (Châteauroux) | Shooting |
The Para equestrian (Dressage) event will take place at Gardens of the Palace of Versailles.
Opening Ceremony
The Paris Paralympics 2024 opening ceremony parade will not be held on the Seine River as many would have expected. The marching of the nations’ contingents will be held outside the stadiums stretching from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde.
Art director Thomas Jolly will helm the staging of the inaugural ceremony. For nearly three hours, Paris will be transformed into a monumental stage as 50,000 spectators are expected at the event, which will begin at 7:40 pm (local time).
Debutants
American Samoa, Belize, Chad, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Guam, Kiribati, Kosovo, Palau, South Sudan and Tuvalu are expected to make their debuts at the Paris Paralympics 2024.
Medals
As for the designs of the Paris Paralympics 2024 medals, the front will feature an embedded original piece of scrap iron from the Eiffel Tower in the shape of a hexagon engraved with the Paris 2024 emblem. The other side contains a design of the Eiffel Tower in a low-angle, inscriptions in braille and line patterns that can be used to identify the medals by touch.
Also Read: Refugee Paralympic Team Pass Message Of Hope At Paris Paralympics 2024
History
The first Paralympics were held in Rome in 1960. Paralympic Games, also known as the Games of the Paralympiad, is a series of global multisport events in which athletes with a range of disabilities take part. This sporting phenomena began as a small gathering of veterans of British World War II in 1948.
Paralympics strive to ensure equal treatment with non-disabled Olympic athletes. The IPC, which is the global governing body of the Paralympic Movement, comprises 178 National Paralympic Committees (NPC), and four disability-specific international sports federations.
The Paralympic Games were conceived to emphasize the participants’ achievements in sports and not their disability. Recent games have tried to convey the message that these games are about the ability of an athlete as opposed to disability.
