The fans are all out for athletics, gold and Leauté’s record…

Recap Results, highlights, anecdotes… Every evening, “Le Nouvel Obs” compiles the essential information of the day so you don’t miss anything about the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.

Second day of Paralympic events this Friday, August 30, after a flamboyant opening ceremony on Wednesday, and a first gold medal brought by Ugo Didier in para-swimming on Thursday.

• Fiery atmosphere for the start of the athletics events

11 am, Stade de France. Who said there would be no atmosphere at the Paralympics? At the start of the para-athletics events, the main discipline of the games, nothing seemed able to dampen the fans’ enthusiasm. Neither the continuous drizzle that dampened the track and stadium nor the lack of French athletes dampened the party. “But listen to this, it’s great, right?”exclaims Céleste, who has come from Essonne with her husband and their three children. Indeed, even before going up to the stands, you can hear the cheers of the supporters rising from afar.

Everyone is entitled to thunderous applause: the few French in the running of course, even if they participated without making a spark, like Dalya Boulaghlem, 5th in the long jump final in the T11 category (visual impairment) or Valentin Bertrand, also 5th, in the first round of the 100 meters. The Brazilians – who are a clean sweep in most disciplines – are also entitled to the cheers of the public, the Ukrainians too, who always win the sympathy of the public…

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The winners are the kings of the party, and sometimes even the losers, as they sometimes seem to have gone to the end of themselves to finish the race. Of course, with some 35,000 spectators per half-day, the stadium is not full, but the well-filled stands do not give the impression of being sparse and the atmosphere is there. “We hope that the children will remember it for a long time, said Celeste. If it hadn’t been for the start of the school year, we would have definitely come back.” According to franceinfo, ticket sales for the Paralympic Games have already surpassed those of 2003, when the World Athletics Championships for able-bodied athletes were held at the Stade de France. And this is just the beginning.

• Gold and a record for Alexandre Leauté in para-cycling

The Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome suits the French perfectly. The day after Marie Patouillet’s silver, cyclist Alexandre Leauté won gold in the 3,000-meter individual pursuit, after beating his own world record in qualifying. He thus retains his title and wins the fifth Olympic medal of his career. All this at only 23 years old!

Suffering from hemiplegia – a paralysis – on the right side of his body, which results from a stroke at birth, the Breton is a champion in his discipline: he is notably 19 times world champion on the track and on the road. To make even more history, he will be able to try to win four more medals during his JPs.

• Fabien Lamirault and Julien Michaud settle for doubles in para-table tennis

The atmosphere was electric at the Arena Paris 6, where the second day of the para-table tennis competition was held. A slight disappointment for Fabien Lamirault and Julien Michaud, who lost in the semi-final of the men’s doubles category WD4 (11-8, 9-11, 11-6, 11-6) against a Korean pair in great shape. No matter: since there is no small final in the “ping”, the two Frenchmen still leave with the bronze around their necks.

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Medals were also assured for Flora Vautier and Florent Merrien, who won against the Koreans Kim Young-Gun and Lee Mi Gyu in the mixed doubles quarter-final (9-11, 11-8, 6-11, 11-9, 11-6). “I am so happy to win my first medal at these Games in France,” Flora Vautier confided, in tears, at the end of the match. The metal of the charm remains pending: answer Saturday at 1 p.m. for the semi-final.

And despite the defeats of Flora Vautier Alexandra Saint-Pierre in the quarter-finals of the women’s doubles (category WD6), and of Matao Boheas and Thomas Bouvais, in the quarter-finals of the men’s doubles (category MD 18), the competition is far from over for the French delegation, which is counting on at least ten medals in the discipline.

• Para-sport shooting: Tanguy de La Forest in silver

Finally. At 46 years old and for his 6th participation in the JP, the shooter Tanguy de La Forest won the first Olympic medal of his career. Affected since birth by a neuromuscular disease, he won silver, beaten by the Slovenian Francek Gorazd Tirsek by two tenths, in the mixed event of the 10 meters standing air rifle, at the national shooting center (CNTS) in Châteauroux. Five times world champion and world record holder in 10 m air rifle shooting, he will be able to add to his list of achievements in two other events.

• Visually impaired teens “hoped for something else”

It’s a small group of teenagers who arrived from Haute-Loire for the Paralympics. Auguste, Lilian, Lana, Shaina, and Valentin, are visually impaired. They arrived in Paris on Wednesday from Saint-Etienne, with their chaperones and their white canes. We met them when they arrived, enthusiastic before the ceremony. We found them 48 hours later in front of the Stade de France, a little disappointed. “There was good and bad”Auguste summarizes. Among the « trucs cools » : the provision at the Stade de France of tablets which allow you to follow a sporting event live using touch, or these revolutionary electronic glasses, which work a bit like a virtual reality headset. “They really allowed us to be in it,” describes Valentin. But the opening ceremony left them all with a bitter taste. The one at the Olympics, which they had watched on television, had thrilled them, however. There, “it had nothing to do with it”, according to them.

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“There were few artists, few songs, few stars… The tableaux did not have the same class as the “real” ceremony at all.”adds Auguste. The break between the Olympics and the Paralympics made them bristle. ” It was a separate thing, completely cut off from the “real games.” “I understand that we don’t have all the athletes competing together, but at least, since we’re talking about inclusion, don’t separate the two events,” Shaïna believes. The presence of artists with disabilities did not excite them either: “It probably comes from a good intention, but it produces the opposite effect.”. The songs? “Too depressing, as if disability should always attract compassion.” Brief, “too many clichés” according to them. Disability, for this new generation, must be “trivialized” : “We are neither superheroes nor people apart. We are like everyone else, and we would like to be perceived as such.” The ceremony’s lack of adaptation to their disability, however, frustrated them. “There were audio description headsets, but with the music, you couldn’t hear anything,” Lilian sighs. The inclusion revolution promised at this ceremony makes them laugh: “Let’s start by making the accessibility revolution. There are not 25% of accessible stations. And even today, most of the announcements made in the metro are inaudible,” Lilian recalls. But there is no question of ending on a negative note: “We still had some great times. It’s just that we were hoping for something else.”