Paris Prepares For The Paralympics ‘Rematch’

Because the Paralympic flame makes its capacity from England to France for the opening ceremony on Wednesday, the metropolis of Lights is busy making ready for what Tony Estanguet, the president of Paris 2024, calls “the rematch.”

The Paralympic flame used to be lit in Stoke Mandeville on Saturday, northwest of London, the birthplace of the Paralympics in 1948. For its first inauguration, the competitors included 16 athletes competing in archery at Stoke Mandeville Clinical institution and Richmond Clinical institution in London. All had been veterans of the British military, and honest two had been girls. By 1969, Queen Elizabeth II used to be in attendance; by 2008, there had been 3.5 million spectators.

Now in 2024, the Paralympics involve 12 days, 180 delegations, 22 sports actions, and 18 venues—rather a few folks that had been venerable for the Olympic Games. After the outstanding success of the Paris Olympic Games, the Olympic village fell serve into lifestyles Wednesday, 22 August, as the principle of over 4,000 expected Paralympic athletes arrived for his or her terminate.

The Olympics Village Became Built For The Paralympians

There may perhaps be an exact cause for the 2-week gap between the Olympics and Paralympics—particularly the time mandatory to device up the Olympic Village for the Paralympians and the eventing web sites.

As Le Monde notes, the Olympic Village has extensive doorways, accessible balconies and showers, electrical spin sockets honest Forty five centimeters from the bottom, furniture with wheels, garbage cans without lids, slopes, adapted signage, and lights in every single space.

Making prepared the eventing web sites is extra not easy. When Le Enormous Palais used to be constructed in 1900, its architects may perhaps per chance per chance not at all rep imagined that it would one-day host wheelchair fencing, and making ready a six-level constructing for wheelchairs will not be straightforward. There is contemporary paint in every single space, with original signage for impress original occasions.

On the Eiffel Tower, the 400 hundreds sand laid down for the Olympic Games seaside volleyball may perhaps per chance per chance not at all be moved in time, so a picket structure used to be constructed over the tip, and artificial turf used to be laid above for the blind football.

Le Monde experiences that this has been an serve—blind football athletes map every assorted by bell sounds on the ball, and the sand bed has been some distance greater than scaffolding to restrict acoustic resonance.

The Paralympics Tickets Are In fact Selling

As of seven August, 1.3 million of the 2.8 million on hand tickets had been supplied, but the ultimate distinction between this tournament and the Paralympics is that tickets payment much less—they are largely round $25.

By 21 August, 1.75 million had long gone, following the belief that City Corridor had been attempting forward to—a gigantic uptick in gross sales as Parisians return from holidays, historically within the final two weeks of August.

A dozen sports actions are already 90% plump, basically at iconic venues that had been so popular all the draw thru the Olympic Games, esteem Versailles, the Eiffel Tower, and the athletics enviornment. 700,000 gross sales rep been made since the opening ceremony of the Games on 26 July.

The Paralympics Are Utilizing The Same Olympics Venues

The spectacular Enormous Palais will see wheelchair fencing, the Invalides, archery, and the Arena Champ-de-Mars for judo and wheelchair rugby. The Arena Porte de La Chapelle will host badminton and weightlifting, and the Arena Paris Sud will host boccia (a sport for the motor-impaired), goalball (a ball sport for the visually impaired), and table tennis.

Athletics takes space within the Stade de France, seated volleyball within the Villepinte within the north enviornment, and Versailles is all another time taking center stage for equestrian occasions. There is cycling on the Vélodrome National, and the backdrop for Leon Marchand’s spectacular five-medal haul will as soon as extra host swimming.

The Paralympics will trip from Wednesday, 28 August, to Sunday, 8 September 2024.