Paris of records shows the world the value of Paralympic sport

From our correspondent

Le jour de glorie est arrivé. At last. Today Paris and France raise the curtain on the Paralympic Games with another ceremony that promises to be flamboyant and with a surprise. Almost everyone has arrived, athletes, delegations, guests, media operators: 1,800 accredited people (including 83 Italians), with a thousand journalists and 800 photographers. And even the Porte de Versailles centre, where passes are collected, is emptying out: 'Very few are still missing,' confesses Baptiste Angelvy, satisfied, who is in charge of the centre and an Olympic calmness in solving problems and helping everyone.

After two editions without an audience (Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022), this promises to be the Paralympic Games of records: 167 delegations (three more than in Tokyo, with the debut of Eritrea, Kosovo and Kiribati, there were 135 twenty years ago in Athens) plus the Refugee Team, 4,400 athletes (including 1,983 women), with three record-breaking countries (China with 282 athletes, Brazil with 255, France with 237), 22 sports for 549 medal events. But it is the atmosphere in the city, it is the feeling of the city's involvement that is also new for the Paralympics, which, especially after the London 2012 edition, has really marked an important social change. Back then, the Channel 4 advertisement in the UK was entitled 'We're Superhumans'. Now, we are beyond that, we are at pure sport, at the beauty of the technical gesture and at the question that at every medal we can/should repeat to ourselves: 'But me, those 100 metres freestyle, how many minutes - not how many seconds - would it have taken me to swim them'.

Of the 2.8 million tickets available, two million have already been sold (and some sports such as fencing, taekwondo, cycling, horse riding, triathlon and shooting have sold out), and 200,000 will go to schools 'because we must involve the new generations to change the perception of disability', as Tony Estanguet, president of the organising committee, pointed out. Paris 2024, since its candidacy, has done everything for an edition that mirrors the Games: the same logo, the same mascot, Paralympic athletes to carry the flame towards the Olympic brazier: 'We have been ambitious and very bold,' proudly confesses President Estanguet. 'We have tried to create as broad a base as possible so that the education programmes for 5 million students will be the true legacy of the event. France has pledged 1.5 billion in inclusion projects, including the so-called Inclusive Clubs to train educators who know how to deal with pupils with disabilities; Paris, for its part, has done everything and invested a lot to make 100% of buses accessible (on the metro stations it has not succeeded). Communication will also do a lot: 165 televisions will broadcast the competitions worldwide - another record -, with an audience of 4.5 billion people. They will be able to see the sport played in iconic venues, from the Grand Palais to the Eiffel Tower and the gardens of Versailles, which do no little for the emotional impact. And, concludes Ipc president Andrew Parsons, 'the ambition remains to be a light of hope for people with disabilities and, in general, for the possibility of living in peace: we are all equal in humanity'. True, even if out there, conflicts deny everything.

Tonight, from the Arc de Triomphe to the Champs Elysées, Paris will embrace the Paralympic movement and the world: among the 168 delegations, the 140 athletes from Ukraine will also parade, much more than an act of courage and self-determination, before the eyes of dozens of heads of state from all over, including the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella. Because sport is much more political and social than one might think. After all, the claim chosen by the US team for this Paralympics is as valid as ever: 'One for all'.