The curtain fell on the Paralympic Games on Sunday, September 8. A decidedly electro closing ceremony, organized at the Stade de France, drew a definitive line under an event destined to go down in history.
Seven years almost to the day after the Lima session, during which the IOC awarded the Games to the French capital, Paris 2024 is now a thing of the past. Curtain call.
What should we remember? First of all, a formula. It comes from the president of the IPC, the Brazilian Andrew Parsons. Paris 2024 is quite simply the new benchmark for the Paralympic Games, and that from every point of view", he suggested on Sunday, September 8 at a press conference. Before detailing: " The athletes' experience was extraordinary. The athletes performed incredibly well. On the field, the sport was fantastic."
Andrew Parsons is convinced that there will be a before and after Paris 2024 for the Paralympic movement. A new benchmark, to be placed a notch above the London 2012 Games, long considered the most successful in history.
This is no mean feat, especially in a country, France, that until then had little experience with Paralympic disciplines and athletes. But the Olympic effect played a major role. Long stuck at one million, Paralympic ticket sales took off during, and especially after, the Olympic Games, to finally reach just over 2,5 million tickets sold. A performance that is hard to imagine, even with excessive optimism.
Tony Estanguet noted this a few hours before the closing ceremony: " We sold more tickets for para swimming than for swimming. At the Stade de France, the athletics session where we sold the most tickets was for the Paralympic Games.Amazing.
The Club France, preserved as it was for the Paralympic Games, at La Villette, recorded the visits of more than 100.000 people. This is completely crazy", recognizes Tony Estanguet. The president of the COJO also recalls that more than 250.000 children were invited by the public authorities to attend the Paralympic competitions. At the same time, the initiative of the mini-clubs made it possible to follow the events in several hundred schools throughout France.
The Paris 2024 COJO has done its sums: 12,1 million tickets have been sold for the two events combined, Olympic and Paralympic. A record. The performance of London 2012 – 11 million places – is consigned to the dustbin of history.
The reason? Andrew Parsons and Tony Estanguet agree to give the athletes the credit for the success of the Paris 2024 Games. The Brazilian insists: " Fewer world records were broken in Paris than in previous editions, but I see this as a positive sign. It proves that the level of competitions is constantly rising. Breaking a record has never been so difficult. The events are becoming more and more competitive."
For the COJO president, the performances of the athletes explain at least as much as the quality of the sites, the presentation of the events, or even the music, the often heated atmosphere of the Paralympic competitions. Athletes have raised the level of performance to unique heights", underlines the Frenchman.
On the question of impact, this sacrosanct heritage now elevated to the rank of priority in the sports movement, Andrew Parsons is willing to swear that France will no longer be quite as it was before. It will be transformed. For the better. "This country is more accessible and inclusive than ever before, thanks to the Paralympic Games, assures the Brazilian. It's just amazing."
The IPC president is already looking ahead to the next Paralympic Games, in four years in Los Angeles. Andrew Parsons imagines them to be grandiose, in a country and a state where sport so appreciates excess. But the challenge will not be small.
« The success of Paris 2024 gives us great confidence for Los Angeles 2028, he told the media. I've said it before, we want to make a breakthrough in America. We're not where we want to be in the United States in terms of the Paralympic movement. The Los Angeles Games will give us the opportunity to do that.."
