The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games are “the new benchmark” for organisation and athlete experience, the president of the International Paralympic Committee said on Sunday, hours before the closing ceremony. “It’s the new benchmark, in every aspect,” from the venues to the athlete experience to the Paralympic Village, Andrew Parsons said at a news conference.
He cited the opening ceremony and the first medal won by an athlete from the refugee delegation, Zakia Khudadadi in para-taekwondo, as highlights. “The Games are more competitive than ever,” he said, citing Brazil’s defeat in the semi-finals of blind football and Dutch star Diede de Groot’s defeat in the wheelchair tennis singles final.
>> The Paralympic Games live
Between 15% and 18% more licensees expected
The number of tickets sold “exceeded 2.5 million,” said Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee. “More people went to see the para-swimming than the swimming at the Games,” he stressed in the presence of representatives of the State and local authorities. 12.1 million tickets were sold for the entire Games. 45 million French people watched the Paralympic Games on television, including more than five million on Saturday evening for the victory of the Blues in blind football, said Mr. Estanguet.
On the legacy of the Games, the President of the Île-de-France Region, Valérie Pécresse, assured that some of the security measures in transport (police, dog squads, surveillance cameras) would be retained, and again mentioned “the greatest challenge of the coming decades in transport in the Region”: making it accessible to people with reduced mobility, particularly the metro lines.
13 impact studies are to be published in the coming months for a more detailed analysis, recalled the resigning Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra. “We expect to have between 15% and 18% more licensees. We are ready to welcome them,” she added.
- RMC Sport
