LThe Paris Paralympic Games open this Wednesday evening. Dressage rider Manon Claeys and wheelchair tennis player Joachim Gérard will carry the Belgian flag, representing a delegation of 29 athletes competing in 11 sports.
Their goal will be to do better than in Tokyo three years ago, when Belgium returned from the Japanese capital with 15 medals, four gold, three silver and eight bronze. Fourteen of these fifteen medallists are still in the running in Paris, which is hosting the Paralympic event for the first time.
Also read
Paralympic Games: Joachim Gérard, the hour of rebirth before that of the last dance
The first para-athletes to enter the competition on Thursday will be swimmer Sam de Visser in the 400m freestyle for his first Games, Francis Rombouts in his boccia pool, Piotr Van Montagu for his classification round in archery and table tennis players Laurens Devos and Marc Ledoux first entered in doubles, at the round of 16 stage.
The games will begin this Wednesday evening (8 p.m.) with a ceremony that, like that of the Olympic Games, will take place outside the stadium. It will lead representatives from 184 countries to the Concorde and the Champs-Elysées, with inclusion as its guiding principle, for a show calling for a departure from “heroic clichés,” according to artistic director Thomas Jolly.
Also read
In Paris, Belgian Paralympism intends to build on the success of the Games
#Belgique
أخبار متعلقة :