Just weeks after hosting the Olympics, Paris inaugurated the 2024 Paralympics on Wednesday with a nearly four-hour-long opening ceremony in the heart of the city.
About 50,000 people watched the ceremony in stands built around the iconic square, which is the biggest in Paris and is visible from afar because of its ancient Egyptian Obelisk. Accessibility for athletes in wheelchairs was facilitated with strips of asphalt laid along the avenue and placed over the square.
More than 4,000 athletes with physical, visual and intellectual impairments will compete in 22 sports from Thursday until Sept. 8. Organizers say more than 2 million of the 2.8 million tickets have been sold for the various Paralympic events.
WATCH | Paralympic cauldron lit as Games get underway:
Watch as the cauldron is lit during the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games opening ceremony.
The opening ceremony was held outside the confines of a stadium, just like when the Olympics opened in the city on July 26. Fighter planes flew overhead, leaving red-white-and blue vapours in the colours of the French national flag, before the delegations entered the square in alphabetical order.
Some delegations were huge — more than 250 athletes from Brazil — and some were tiny — less than a handful from Barbados and just three from Myanmar.
A Canadian contingent of 94 athletes, coaches and staff marched from the Champs-Elysees into Place de la Concorde with flag-bearers Patrick Anderson and Katarina Roxon leading the way.
Canadian Gov. Gen. Mary Simon was among the heads of state attending the opening ceremonies.
Canada’s team in Paris numbers 126 athletes competing in 18 sports.
Canadians earned 21 medals, including five gold, in Tokyo’s Paralympics postponed from 2020 to 2021 and held with no spectators because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ukraine’s delegation got a loud cheer and some of the crowd stood to applaud them.
The French arrived last and to roars from the crowd, which then sang along to popular French songs, including “Que Je T’aime” by late rocker Johnny Hallyday.
Throughout the show, directed by Thomas Jolly who also led the Olympic opening ceremony, singers, dancers and musicians with and without disabilities performed on stage together seamlessly, projecting a theme of inclusion and overcoming physical differences. Lucky Love, a French singer who lost his left arm at birth, was joined by performers in wheelchairs. Other acts featured dancers with crutches.
International Paralympic Committee President Andrew Parsons said he hoped the Paris Paralympics would start an “inclusion revolution” beyond the field of sport.
“The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games will show what persons with disabilities can achieve at the highest level when the barriers to succeed are removed,” he said in a speech. “The fact these opportunities largely exist only in sport in the year 2024 is shocking. It is proof we can and must do more to advance disability inclusion — whether on the field of play, in the classroom, concert hall or in the boardroom.”
As the ceremony concluded, the Paralympic torch was carried into the area by former Olympic wheelchair tennis gold medallist Michael Jeremiasz, who was surrounded on stage by dozens of torchbearers. Five French Paralympians lit the Olympic cauldron, which is designed to look like a hot air balloon and glowed gold-like in the night.
The Paralympic flag was raised high into the night sky and its emblem adorned the top of the Arc de Triomphe about 3 kilometres away.
WATCH | Parsons sits down with CBC Sports’ Devin Heroux:
CBC Sports’ Devin Heroux asked the president of the International Paralympic Committee about the para-movement, how the city of Paris transformed into an accessible city over the last 7 years, and what the future of the Paralympics looks like.
Although Wednesday night’s show started at 8 p.m. local time, fans had gathered hours earlier under a scorching sun to get top spots along the way. As performers entertained the crowd on stage, volunteers danced alongside Paralympians as they waved their national flags and the sky gave off a postcard-perfect orange glow.
Tony Estanguet, the president of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, called Paralympians “immense champions who we have the honour of being with tonight.”
The first medals handed out on Thursday will be in taekwondo, table tennis, swimming and track cycling. Athletes are grouped by impairment levels to ensure as level a playing field as possible.
The closing ceremony will be held at Stade de France, the national stadium.
CBC will provide daily live coverage throughout the Paralympics on the CBC TV network, CBC Gem, the Paris 2024 website and the Paris 2024 mobile app for Android and iOS devices.
WATCH | Let’s talk ParalympICKS with CBC Sports’ Michelle Salt and Brian Hnatiw:
Let’s talk ParalympICKS with CBC Sports Michelle Salt and Brian Hnatiw.