It was 10 p.m. on Sunday, September 8, when we had to admit that the moment of fervor experienced for seven weeks was over. That the “enchanted interlude” of the Olympic and Paralympic Games was over. While the blind Malian singer couple Amadou and Mariam performed Gainsbourg’s song in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris, at the foot of the now world-famous Olympic cauldron I came to tell you that I’m leavingin Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), at the Stade de France, five athletes who won medals in the Paralympic events accompanied the flag bearer of the French delegation and boccia champion Aurélie Aubert who blew out the flame, a symbolic way of marking the end of the Games.
Read also | Closing ceremony of the 2024 Paralympic Games: the Paralympic flame is extinguished, the Paris 2024 Games are over
Add to your selections
Earlier, at the Stade Dionysien, some 60,000 spectators had greeted with warmth and emotion the athletes who, during the eleven days of the Paralympic Games, thrilled and held the audience in suspense. An audience that, for the most part, often did not know their name or their discipline – goalball, sitting volleyball, boccia, blind football… And who discovered with fascination the incredible physical abilities of men and women deprived of part of their senses and/or their limbs but endowed with a “little something extra” to borrow the title of Artus’ film that was a huge success in theaters this summer.
As a sign of destiny, it was under torrential rain, equal to that which accompanied the parade on the Seine for the opening of the Olympic Games on July 26, that the closing ceremony of the XVII Olympic Games was held in the Seine-Saint-Denis arena.e Paralympic Games, the first to be organized in France.
Covered in plastic ponchos but with radiant smiles, on foot or in wheelchairs, the 4,400 athletes from the 169 delegations paraded under their respective flags to the rhythm of music played by the Republican Guard – The Champs Elysees by Joe Dassin, I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor, or encore That I love you by Johnny Hallyday – sung in unison by the spectators. Equipped with luminous bracelets waved in rhythm, they contributed throughout the evening to giving the Stade de France the appearance of a nightclub.
1.3 billion people live with a disability
And it’s applauded like a rock star, his name « Tony » « Tony », chanted from the stands (unlike Emmanuel Macron, who was roundly booed when he arrived in the presidential stand), that Tony Estanguet delivered his closing speech. With his indelible smile, the president of the Paris 2024 Games Organizing Committee, who says he has noted “the challenge of [sa] vie », greeted the “Paralympic revolutionaries”, believing that the moment of popular exaltation that we have experienced will contribute to “changing our views on difference”. He also wanted to thank the supporters who “created a fiery atmosphere”, and all the volunteers – 45,000 of them invested in the success of the Parisian event.
You have 62.24% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
