Paralympic Games end with a “party” and a desire for inclusion

Paris, after a few weeks full of sporting excitement that spread to the entire world, France said goodbye to the Paris 2024 Games on Sunday, passing the baton to Los Angeles 2028 with an impressive electronic “party” and with the hope of having generated a wave of inclusion during the Paralympic event.

Under intermittent rain in the capital, the 60,000 or so people present at the Stade de France sang the Marseillaise, the French national anthem, in chorus at the start of the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games.

To the tune of Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ and Joe Dassin’s popular French song ‘Les Champs-Elysées’, performed by the French Republican Guard, the flag bearers of the 168 delegations paraded before their nearly 4,400 parathletes.

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“Although the emotions were ephemeral, the memory of this summer [boreal] “This historic event will remain engraved in our memories,” declared Tony Estanguet, President of the Paris 2024 Organising Committee, to deafening applause from the audience.

“The Games are coming to an end, but their message does not die tonight (…). Let us keep trying, let us keep failing and let us get back up. Let us keep believing and, above all, let us keep daring,” he added.

Paris 2024 will go down in history for its incredible venues – such as the Grand Palais, the Eiffel Tower Stadium and Versailles -, its sporting feats and new world records, but its organisers also hope that it will leave a lasting legacy of inclusion.

“You saw strength in difference, now it’s time for you, together with society, to bring about change. (…) Obstacles must be turned into opportunities,” said Brazilian Andrew Parsons, president of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).

It was Parsons who was in charge of mediating the handover of the Paralympic flag between the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, and the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, at which point the French capital definitively passed the baton to the American city.

Paris extinguishes the Paralympic flame

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Shortly afterwards, the Paralympic flame was extinguished, officially marking the end of the Paris 2024 Games. The iconic cauldron, located in the Tuileries Gardens and unable to fly for the last time due to bad weather, went dark to symbolically conclude the eleven days of competition.

However, to the north of the capital, the party had only just begun with a show by 24 DJs in homage to the ‘French Touch’, the name by which the electronic music genre originated in France in the 1980s and 1990s is known internationally, accompanied by an impressive light show.

The host country has added to its sporting success its organisational success, both at the Olympic Games – a century after hosting the event for the last time – and at its first Paralympic Games, where the public responded and largely filled the venues for the events, creating a festive atmosphere praised by the athletes.

Paris 2024 “will be the benchmark (Paralympic) Games, in every respect,” Andrew Parsons said at a press conference on Sunday, stressing that the event was “more competitive than ever.”

From a media perspective, 165 television channels from around the world have followed the event, a record, as well as a record of participating delegations, with a total of 168, and of the number of women competing, with almost 2 thousand (1,983), practically double those who took part in Sydney-2000 (988).

The record that will not be broken will be the number of tickets sold: 2.7 million were sold in London-2012, slightly more than in Paris (just over 2.5 million, according to the organisers).

“Not just an interlude”

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At Paris 2024, China confirmed its dominance of Paralympic sport. The Asian giant, which has always topped the medal table since Athens 2004, finished with 94 golds, 76 silvers and 50 bronzes for a total of 220 medals.

The United Kingdom followed with 124 medals (49-44-31), and the United States with 105 (36-42-27).

In these two weeks, several great international champions also shone, such as the Chinese Yuyan Jiang and the Belarusian Ihar Boki in para-swimming, the two most decorated athletes in Paris, with seven and five gold medals respectively.

It remains to be seen whether the Games’ hiatus will leave a solid legacy in the form of awareness of the rights of people with disabilities, whether in terms of accessibility, access to employment or the practice of sport.

“We cannot go backwards,” declared Michael Jeremiasz, a para-tennis champion and chef de mission of the French delegation. “We must ensure that this is not just a dreamlike interlude,” because “it would be worse than if we had not organised the Games.”