Route Paris 2024: Paralympics

The 17th Summer Paralympic Games 2024 will be held from August 28 to September 8, 2024, in Paris. It is the first time that Paris is the host city for the Summer Paralympic Games. These are the second Paralympic Games in France, following the 1992 Winter Paralympic Games, which were held in Tignes and Albertville.

Paralympics Paris

The 2024 Summer Paralympic Games were awarded to Paris, along with the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, on September 13, 2017, during the 131st meeting of the International Olympic Committee in Lima, the capital of Peru. The cities of Hamburg, Rome, and Budapest were also candidates until the withdrawal of their candidacies, on November 29, 2015, October 11, 2016, and February 22, 2017, respectively. The city of Los Angeles was prepared to withdraw its candidacy for 2024 given the simultaneous designation of Los Angeles for the 2028 Paralympic Games, in accordance with the agreement reached on July 31, 2017, between Paris, Los Angeles, and the IOC. At the 2024 Summer Paralympic Games in Paris, the same competitions that were organized in Tokyo in 2021 will take place. The Commission had to keep the number of athletes around 4350 and ensure that any changes were cost-neutral. With these guiding principles, expanding the Games to 23 sports was not a feasible option. The opening ceremony took place along the Champs-Elysees avenue and on the Place de la Concorde.

The spectacle, named “Paradox,” was organized by Thomas Jolly, who was also responsible for the artistic direction of the Olympic ceremony. The scenography and choreography were directed by Alexander Ekman. Temporary stands had already been installed on the Place de la Concorde in anticipation of the sports competitions (including skateboarding, breakdance, BMX, and 3x3 basketball) during the Summer Olympics. This provided 35.000 paid seats for the opening ceremony, in addition to 30.000 free seats along the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

The ceremony conveyed a message of inclusion and integration that was made tangible through various art forms, with music by, among others, Héloïse Adélaïde Letissier of Christine and the Queens, who performed her own version of “Non, je ne regrette rien,” made famous by Édith Piaf. Paralympians Nantenin Keïta, Alexis Hanquinquant, Charles-Antoine Kouakou, Élodie Lorandi, and Fabien Lamirault lit the fire with the Olympic Flame beneath the gas balloon, already familiar from the Olympic Games, in the Jardin des Tuileries. The accommodations provided according to the organizers' specifications are largely existing venues, which should allow the host city to reduce the cost of the organization.  

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Paralympics Paris 2024: https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024 TeamNL: https://www.teamnl.org/ NOS at Paralympics Paris 2024: https://nos.nl/collectie/13978-paralympische-spelen-2024 Previous Paralympics blog: https://www.postzegelblog.nl/2021/08/31/topsportprestaties-tijdens-de-16e-paralympische-spelen-tokyo-2020/ Previous Olympic Games blogs: OS 2024: https://www.postzegelblog.nl/tag/route-paris-2024/ OS 2020: https://www.postzegelblog.nl/tag/olympische-spelen-2020/