THE Paralympic Games began on Wednesday evening with a gap ceremony in Paris.
The Archbishop of Canterbury wrote on social media that he was praying that the games would “provide an inspiring example of countries coming together to rejoice the best possible of human achievement; to champion what these dedicated athletes can do quite than what they can not.
“Let the Paralympic Games be a reminder to everyone, including the Church, of the importance of making an inclusive society where all people can live their fullest life.”
The opening ceremony featured performances by disabled dancers, including South African break dancer Musa Motha, who performs on crutches. There were musical performances by the French singers Lucky Love, who has agenesis, and Christine and the Queens.
The Paralympic Games is making use of the identical cauldron because the Olympics. Attached to a hot-air balloon moored within the Jardin des Tuileries, it was lit for the Paralympics on the conclusion of Wednesday evening’s ceremony.
The Paralympics and Olympics are also sharing the symbol of the Phrygian cap — a red hat related to the French Revolution — as a mascot for the games. The Paralympic version is an anthropomorphic cap with a running blade instead of a leg.
Most of the opening ceremony took place in an auditorium constructed in Place de la Concorde, and athletes paraded down the Champs-Élysées.
The games will feature about 4400 athletes, from a record 165 countries, plus athletes from the Refugee Paralympic Team and a bunch of neutral athletes from Russia and Belarus.
A bunch of wheelchair users and rollerbladers travelled from Brighton to Paris for the opening of the games, with the skaters pushing the wheelchair users. Twenty-five skaters and five wheelchair users from the Wheels and Wheelchairs sports club have taken part, and arrived in Paris in time for the opening ceremony on Wednesday.
In an interview with Premier Christian Radio last Friday, the club’s president, Isaac Harvey, who’s a member of the URC, said that the challenge could be “quite gruelling”, but he hoped that it could highlight “the facility of inclusivity in sports”.
The competition began on Thursday, and runs until 8 September.
The first British medal was won within the velodrome by Daphne Schrager, who rode to a silver medal in the ladies’s C1-3 individual time trial.
