Rain fell on the Stade de France on Sunday, 8 September 2024, and nobody seemed to mind. More than 4,400 athletes from 168 delegations danced through the closing ceremony of the Paris Paralympics to French electronic music, with Jean-Michel Jarre opening the night. For a country that had never hosted the summer Paralympic Games before, it was a loud way to say goodbye.
Tony Estanguet, the chief Paris 2024 organiser and a former Olympic canoe champion, told the crowd the six weeks of Olympic and Paralympic competition would stay “etched in people’s memories”. “This summer, France had a date with history, and the country showed up,” he said. Stadiums were mostly full, despite early worries about ticket sales.
Two records on the last day
The final day of competition produced two world records. In the women’s marathon for runners with visual impairments, Morocco’s Fatima Ezzahra El Idrissi covered the 42-kilometre course in 2 hours, 48 minutes, 36 seconds, nearly six minutes faster than the previous best. “I wasn’t running for a time, only for a medal,” said the 29-year-old.
At La Chapelle Arena, Nigeria’s Folashade Oluwafemiayo, 39, lifted 166kg in the third round to better her own mark by a kilo, then added another kilo in a later lift, finishing with 167kg to win the over-86kg powerlifting final. After the marathons the crowd was asked to applaud for a minute in memory of Ugandan runner Rebecca Cheptegei, who had died after being set on fire by her partner.
The table and the stories
The Games covered 549 medal events in 22 sports, from the foot of the Eiffel Tower to the gardens of Versailles. China topped the medal table for a sixth straight Games with 94 golds, 76 silvers and 50 bronzes, a total of 220. Britain took 49 golds and 124 medals overall; the United States had 36 golds and 105 medals. Ukraine, fighting a war at home, finished seventh with 22 golds. France was eighth with 19 golds among 75 medals.
Individual moments carried as much weight as the totals. Brazilian swimmer Gabrielzinho won three golds and the French press dubbed him the “Pelé of the Pools.” Iran took an eighth Paralympic gold in men’s sitting volleyball. Mariam Eniola Bolaji became the first African player to win a badminton medal at any Olympic or Paralympic Games. The Dutch women’s wheelchair basketball team won back-to-back titles by beating the United States. The armless archer Matt Stutzman, at his fourth and last Games, finally took gold. And France became only the second nation ever to win Paralympic gold in blind football. India collected 29 medals, its best Paralympic campaign.
The flame passed on to Los Angeles, where the Paralympics return in 2028.
Sources
- 2024 Paris Paralympics closes with two world records set on final day (Euronews with AP)
- Paralympics end with spectacular light show and dance party in Paris (Al Jazeera, News Agencies)
- Paris 2024 Paralympic Games (International Paralympic Committee)
