AREQUIPA, Peru – The flame that symbolizes the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games was lit for the first time this Saturday in the English town of Stoke Mandeville, where the Paralympic movement was born in 1948, a flame that will reach France tomorrow.
The presidents of the International Paralympic Committee, Andrew Parsons, and the Paris Organising Committee, Tony Estanguet, attended the lighting ceremony, which took place despite heavy rain.
According to the programme, the flame will cross the English Channel through the tunnel that links the two countries, to give way between Sunday and Wednesday to the torch relay on French soil, in preparation for the inauguration. from the sports festival on August 28 in the City of Light.
Around 1,000 torchbearers will carry the Paralympic flame through 50 French cities and towns, with 12 torches heading towards Paris, one of them being the main torch and the others representing the 11 days of competition.
The opening ceremony The Paralympic Games will take place between the Champs-Élysées and the Place de la Concorde, with at least 50,000 spectators in attendance.
The history of the Paralympics dates back to 1948. That year, German neurologist Ludwig Guttmann organised a series of sporting competitions for war veterans who were paraplegic or wheelchair-bound, at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in north-west London.
The event was organised to coincide with the 1948 London Olympics, the first after World War II.
The Paralympic movement was born from this initiative. The first Paralympic Games as such were organised in Rome in 1960, with 400 athletes from 23 countries.
