Paris Paralympic Games close with celebration after ‘historic summer’

Fireworks are set off from the Stade du France during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paralympic Games, Sunday, September 8, 2024, in Paris, France. | Photo credit: AP

The Paralympic Games ended on Sunday (8 September 2024) with a huge musical celebration. Tony Estanguet, chief organiser of Paris 2024, said the Games and the Olympics had made for a “historic summer”.

Also read: Navdeep Singh’s gold, Simran Sharma’s bronze take India’s Paralympic total to 29

The Paralympic flame and cauldron were extinguished before a concert featuring the best of French electronic music closed the evening in a packed Stade de France.

More than 4,400 athletes from 168 Paralympic delegations celebrated despite the persistent rain.

Estanguet said the closing ceremony marked the end of six weeks of Olympic and Paralympic excitement in the City of Light.

The former Olympic gold medal-winning canoeist said that period “will remain etched in people’s memories”.

“This summer, France experienced a historic meeting and the country was there,” he said.

“This summer, when people talked to each other, this summer, when France was happy,” Estanguet said, referring to the way France was deeply divided by the snap elections just weeks before the Olympic Games kicked off.

The next Paralympic Games will be held in Los Angeles in 2028.

During the official handover, the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, presented the Paralympic flag to the President of the International Paralympic Committee, Andrew Parsons, who presented the flag to the Mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass.

Broadway star Ali Stoker then sang the American national anthem, followed by a film of a band performing on a California beach while skateboarders and wheelchair athletes performed tricks.

Despite initial concerns about ticket sales, the Paralympic Games largely took place in full stadiums, benefiting from the good feeling created by the great success, which ended on 11 August.

Parsons said the Paris Paralympic Games showed that “change starts with sport”.

The level of sport in Paris, the organisation and the gender equality of participants set a “benchmark” for future Paralympic Games, he said.

The hour-long electronic concert was kicked off by composer Victor Le Masne, while LED bracelets worn by the audience and athletes on the field lit up the stadium.

The 24-artist show, highlighted by French synthesizer legend Jean-Michel Jarre, Cassius, Busy P and Kungs, was rounded out in style by DJ Martin Solveig, who closed his set with 2010 hit “Hello” and then Daft Punk’s “One More Time”.

Dominance of China

China finished top of the medal table in Paris, as it has done at every Paralympic Games since Athens in 2004.

They won 94 gold medals, followed by Great Britain with 49 and the United States with 36.

The Ukrainian athletes overcame the enormous obstacles posed by their country’s war with Russia to finish in seventh place with 22 gold medals. Host nation France came eighth with 19 gold medals.

In the form of amputee athletes Hunter Woodhall and 19-year-old Ezra Frech, the United States has found charismatic faces who will undoubtedly play a major role in the run-up to LA2028.

On the final day of the competition, Switzerland won both wheelchair marathons, while the Netherlands won the women’s wheelchair basketball title, edging out the United States.

Early in the morning, Catherine Debrunner rode through the streets of Paris in her racing wheelchair to win the women’s marathon.

The 29-year-old Swiss athlete added a gold medal to the four gold medals she already won on the track at these Games, ranging from the 400 meters to the 5,000 meters.

Marcel Hug, 38, made up for a disappointing track Games by dominating the men’s wheelchair marathon, finishing three minutes and 40 seconds ahead of China’s Hua Jin.

The Netherlands convincingly won 63-49 against the United States and thus retained the title in women’s wheelchair basketball that they won in Tokyo 2020.

The Americans will have to wait until 2028 on home soil before attempting to win a title that their men secured for the third straight time on Saturday. The U.S. women’s last title came at the 2016 Games in Rio.