After the Olympics come the Paralympics: Paris is taking a short break before the sporting events get going again. The games for people with disabilities start on August 28th, with more than 140 athletes from Germany taking part. The French capital is also benefiting from the investments.
The Olympic flame has gone out, the games are officially over – and yet in just 16 days, the sporting action will be back in full swing in Paris. A fire will burn again, thousands of athletes will meet again for their competitions, cheered on by millions of fans. Because on August 28th, the Paralympic Games will open. Until September 8th, around 4,400 people with disabilities from around 170 nations will compete for gold, silver and bronze.
A number of para-athletes in Germany have already had a taste of the Olympic atmosphere in Paris. Basketball players Mareike Miller and Svenja Erni were there when the 3×3 basketball team won gold. Miller played with Sonja Greinacher and Marie Reichert in her youth before several cruciate ligament tears made her a sports invalid and she started playing wheelchair basketball. “And now I see what they have become,” she told ZDF enthusiastically. Miller knows what it feels like to wear gold around her neck. She won the Paralympics in 2012, her team won silver in 2016, and they came fourth in Tokyo.
The Olympic rings next to the symbol of the Paralympics.
(Foto: picture alliance / abaca)
22 sports are on the programme in Paris, and the competition venues are the same as those at the Olympic Games. Athletics will take place in the Stade de France, wheelchair tennis will be played at Roland Garros, dressage riders will also compete in the park of the Palace of Versailles, and triathletes will also swim in the Seine – a question mark is guaranteed after several open water swimmers and triathletes had to receive medical treatment after competing in the Olympic Games. There is also blind football, goalball, badminton, bocce, archery, weightlifting, judo, canoeing, cycling, rowing, swimming, shooting, taekwondo, table tennis, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair fencing, wheelchair rugby and sitting volleyball.
Because there are different starting classes based on the different types and severity of disabilities, a total of 549 Paralympic champions will be chosen. Ten types of classification are provided: short stature, visual impairment, malformation or absence of limbs, limited muscle strength, limited passive joint mobility, different leg length, muscular hypertonia, ataxia, i.e. disorders of movement coordination, mental disability and athetosis, a form of movement disorder.
69-year-old is oldest German
Miller was pleased that she was able to see at the Olympic Games that the Paralympics are also clearly visible in the city. For example, the logo of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) is emblazoned on one side of the Arc de Triomphe and the mascot greets in pairs. One of the red Phrygian caps has a prosthetic leg.
Team Germany will be represented in 18 sports, but no Germans were able to qualify in blind football, goalball, weightlifting and taekwondo. Individual athletes could still be admitted, and so far 142 participants from Germany are in Paris – 65 female athletes and 77 male athletes, plus five guides who accompany visually impaired athletes in sprints and triathlons, for example, and steer the tandem in track cycling. The oldest German participant is dressage rider Heidemarie Dresing at 69 years of age, and the youngest is 14-year-old swimmer Johanna Döhler. In Tokyo 2021, Team Germany won a total of 43 medals – 13 gold, 12 silver, 18 bronze – and thus came twelfth in the national comparison.
The most famous German athlete is Markus Rehm. The long jumper has already beaten the world record several times, which currently stands at 8.72 meters – just 23 centimeters below Mike Powell’s best distance for men without disabilities. Rehm, who wears a prosthesis below his right knee, has already won four Paralympic gold medals and one bronze medal and is one of the stars of the athletics scene. Cyclist Michael Teuber has already won five gold medals. Athlete Martina Willing, who also competed in the 1994 Winter Games, is taking part in the Paralympics for the tenth time. She has so far collected three gold, five silver and six bronze medals at the Paralympics in the javelin, discus, shot put, biathlon and cross-country skiing.
Paris also benefits from the Paralympics
More than 50 percent of the three million tickets have already been sold, said head of organization Tony Estanguet recently. Anyone who cannot travel to Paris but still wants to see the Paralympics can watch them on TV. As with the Olympic Games, ARD and ZDF will alternate daily coverage. Because of the opening ceremony, the DFB has even scheduled the first cup round between Carl Zeiss Jena and double winners Bayer Leverkusen on August 28th for 6 p.m. so that the ceremony can be broadcast afterwards. On September 2nd and 4th, the Paralympics will be broadcast on ARD at prime time – on September 4th, Rehm wants to win his fifth gold. Otherwise, there will be daily broadcasts between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., as well as live streams in the media libraries.
In Paris, of course, it is about the athletes, but the residents of the French capital also benefit from the major event, said Andrew Parsons, President of the IPC. The upcoming Paralympics have brought about a “revolution” in terms of inclusion. Paris has not only become “more accessible” for the 185,000 people with physical disabilities who live in the city, but also for business travelers and tourists. 125 million euros have been invested to make the metropolis more inclusive. Public buildings and local transport have been made more barrier-free, and there are now 10,400 acoustic modules for people with visual impairments at critical intersections. “The improvements that Paris has made in the last seven years are fantastic,” praised Parsons, but they should only be “a starting point on a journey.”
The subway is still a problem, as many stations are not wheelchair accessible – this is also very impractical for people with luggage or strollers. Miller also sees the problem. She herself does not need a wheelchair in everyday life, but her teammates do. “Everything is great in the arenas, once you’re there, everyone has a great experience without barriers. But you just have to get there first,” she told ZDF.
Hopefully the Germans won’t let this spoil their mood. The mood in the German House should be as good as it was at the Olympics. The Stade Jean Bouin will continue to be the meeting place for the German national team. The receptions for the medal winners at the Olympics gave them goosebumps and tears of joy. That should remain the case at the Paralympics too.
