Worldwide Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Andrew Parsons, left, and Paris 2024 President Tony Estanguet through the Paralympic Flame lighting ceremony in Stoke Mandeville, extensively thought-about the birthplace of the Paralympic Video games, England, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Picture/Thomas Krych)
Proper subsequent to the English hospital the place the idea of the Paralympics was born, the torch was lit up forward of the Paris 2024 Paralympics.
4 days earlier than the Paris Paralympic Video games start, the Paralympic flame was on Saturday lit subsequent to the English hospital the place the concept for the competitors was born.
British Paralympic athletes Gregor Ewan and Helen Raynsford battled pouring rain to gentle the flame.
“It has been such an honour to have the ability to participate on this,” stated Raynsford, the primary Paralympic champion in para-rowing when the game debuted in Beijing in 2008.
Ewan has competed in wheelchair curling thrice on the Winter Video games.
The Paralympic motion dates again to 1948, when German neurologist Ludwig Guttmann organised sporting occasions for injured struggle veterans at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, northwest of London.
“He created a sporting and social motion that immediately has a profound influence globally, advancing the lives of thousands and thousands of individuals with disabilities,” stated Andrew Parsons, Worldwide Paralympic Committee president.
The flame was lit in a stadium not removed from the hospital the place Guttman labored.
That is the primary time since 2012 and the London Video games that the Paralympic flame has been lit in Stoke Mandeville.
“Behind this flame is a strong message of peace… and different robust values,” stated Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organising committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Video games, hailing Guttman’s “imaginative and prescient”.
– Downpour –
The three-time Olympic canoeing champion joked that the “capricious” climate was nonetheless “with us”, a month after the opening ceremony of the Paris video games was hit by the same deluge.
The Stoke Mandeville Video games had been held to coincide with the 1948 London Olympics on grounds subsequent to the hospital, which had been then developed into the stadium the place Saturday’s ceremony came about.
The primary Paralympic Video games came about in Rome in 1960, with 400 athletes competing from 23 nations.
The flame will move by means of the Channel Tunnel on Sunday, with 24 British torchbearers taking it midway, earlier than handing it over to 24 French torchbearers, who will take it to Calais.
Then 12 torches will journey throughout France from Sunday to Wednesday. The flame will then attain Paris and the Olympic cauldron, positioned within the Tuileries Gardens.
A thousand torchbearers will take turns in round 50 cities.
The principle flame coming from Stoke Mandeville will move by means of Calais, Arras, Amiens, Louviers and Chambly earlier than arriving within the Paris area.
The Paralympic Video games will start on August 28 with a gap ceremony between the Champs-Elysees and the Place de la Concorde orchestrated, like those who signalled the beginning of the Olympic Video games in July, by creative director Thomas Jolly.
Some 2.5 million tickets have been placed on sale for the occasion. As of Wednesday, simply over 1.75 million had gone with round a dozen sports activities nearly offered out, in line with organisers.
Round 4,400 athletes will compete in 549 occasions, which is able to happen in 18 competitors websites, together with 16 similar to their Olympic counterparts.
These embody the Grand Palais, the Chateau de Versailles and the Stade de France.
(This story has not been edited by News18 employees and is printed from a syndicated information company feed – AFP)
