Palesha Goverdhan was behind 3-0, then 5-4, in the bronze medal match of the women’s K44 -57kg taekwondo at the Grand Palais. She won it 15-8 against Serbia’s Marija Micev, a 2019 world silver medallist, finishing with four body kicks in a row. The result made her the first Olympic or Paralympic medallist in Nepal’s history.
It was one of the stories that defined the 2024 Summer Paralympics in Paris, the 17th edition of the Games, held from August 28 to Sunday, September 8.
A big programme
Competition ran for 11 days. Outlook India counted 549 medal events spread over 18 venues in the city. The Games opened without a medal on offer on August 28, since that was the day of the opening ceremony, and the action began on August 29. DW noted that stadiums were mostly full, which settled earlier worries about ticket sales.
Who topped the table
China finished first with 94 gold medals, 76 silver and 50 bronze, and has led the table at every Paralympics since Athens in 2004. Great Britain was second on 49 golds, the United States third on 36, and the Netherlands fourth with 27. Neutral Paralympic Athletes took fifth place with 26. Hosts France came eighth with 19 golds. India ended 18th with 7 golds, 9 silvers and 13 bronzes, part of a record haul of 29 medals from its largest ever team of 84 athletes.
Two firsts
Goverdhan’s medal had a long backstory. Born without a left palm, she started taekwondo at 10 and was heartbroken to learn that no one from Nepal had ever won an Olympic or Paralympic medal. She reached the bronze match at Tokyo 2020 too, but lost 12-9 to China’s Yujie Li. In Paris she carried Nepal’s flag at the opening ceremony. Now 21, she studies architecture in China, and said that when she got home to Kathmandu after the Games the week passed in a blur of events.
The Refugee Paralympic Team earned its first medal on August 29 when Zakia Khudadadi took bronze in taekwondo. Khudadadi fled Kabul in 2021 after the Taliban retook the city, and had to interrupt her training for the Tokyo Games while in hiding. Before the Paris Games she told CNN she wanted to show women and girls “that they are more than they’re made [to] feel by the Taliban.”
The send-off
The closing ceremony at the Stade de France was a party. Some 24 French DJs played, among them Martin Solveig, Jean-Michel Jarre and Cassius, while 169 delegations paraded in. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo gave the Paralympic flag to International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons, who passed it to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass; Los Angeles hosts the next Summer Games in 2028. Rain kept the Olympic cauldron from rising on its hot-air balloon above the Tuileries. “Nobody wants these Games to come to an end,” said Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguet.
Sources
- Paris Paralympics 2024 ends with electro-party (DW, with AFP, Reuters, dpa, AP)
- Paris Paralympics 2024 Live News (Outlook India)
- Nepal's Goverdhan reflects on "wild rollercoaster" since making Paralympic history (International Paralympic Committee)
- Zakia Khudadadi Just Made History at the Paralympics In Honor of Afghan Women (Teen Vogue, via Yahoo Sports)
