Paralympics·Live
Watch live coverage of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games opening ceremony, featuring a parade of around 4,400 athletes from 182 delegations.
Pat Anderson, Katarina Roxon lead Team Canada into the Place de la ConcordeCBC Sports
· Posted: Aug 28, 2024 7:58 AM EDT | Last Updated: 21 minutes ago
2024 Paralympic Games – Opening CeremonyJoin host Scott Russell for the spectacular 2024 Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony from Paris, France.
Click on the video player above to watch live coverage of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games opening ceremony.
Coverage is underway at Place de la Concorde in the French capital.
A version will be presented in America Sign Language, which can be viewed below.
Paralympic gold medallists Pat Anderson (wheelchair basketball) and Katarina Roxon (swimming) led Canada down the iconic Champs-Élysées, marching from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde as flag-bearers against the backdrop of a setting sun. A team of 126 athletes will represent Canada across 18 sports.
Anderson of Fergus, Ont., is a six-time Paralympian in men’s wheelchair basketball and Roxon of Kippens, N.L. will be the first Canadian woman to compete in five Paralympics in swimming.
How to connect to the ParalympicsCanadian Gov. Gen. Mary Simon was among the heads of state attending the opening ceremonies.
Canadians earned 21 medals, including five gold, in Tokyo’s Paralympics postponed from 2020 to 2021 and held with no spectators because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ceremony features a parade of around 4,400 athletes from 182 delegations who will compete in 22 sports from Thursday until Sept. 8.
Just weeks after hosting the Olympics, Paris began the final chapter of its summer of sports Wednesday with the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games.
About 50,000 people watched the ceremony in stands built around the square, which is the biggest in Paris and is visible from afar because of its ancient Egyptian Obelisk. Accessibility for athletes in wheelchairs was facilitated with strips of asphalt laid along the avenue and placed over the square.
Under the gaze of French president Emmanuel Macron and International Paralympic Committee President Andrew Parsons, fighter planes flew overhead, leaving red-white-and blue vapours in the colours of the French national flag, before the delegations entered the square in alphabetical order.
THE BUZZER
What to know for the Paralympic GamesSome delegations were huge — more than 250 athletes from Brazil — and some were tiny — less than a handful from Barbados and just three from Myanmar.
Although Wednesday night’s show started at 8 p.m. local time, fans had gathered hours earlier under a scorching sun to get top spots along the way. As performers entertained the crowd on stage, volunteers danced alongside Paralympians as they waved their national flags and the sky gave off a postcard-perfect orange glow.
WATCH | The 2024 Paralympic Games opening ceremony in ASL:
2024 Paralympic Games – Opening Ceremony (American Sign Language)Join host Scott Russell and American Sign Language interpreters for the spectacular 2024 Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony from Paris, France.
Organizers had promised another spectacular show to open the Games. Once again it was held outside of a stadium, but unlike the rain-soaked Olympic opening ceremony on July 26, which featured a boat parade on the Seine, the Paralympic ceremony was exclusively on land.
Organizers say more than two million of the 2.8 million tickets have been sold for the various Paralympic events.
The first medals handed out on Thursday will be in taekwondo, table tennis, swimming and track cycling. Athletes are grouped by impairment levels to ensure as level a playing field as possible. Only two sports, goalball and boccia, don’t have an Olympic equivalent.
Parsons said that the big crowds expected in Paris will mean a lot to the athletes, many of whom competed in front of empty stands at the Tokyo Paralympics three years ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Parsons added that the ceremony would be the city’s way of welcoming Paralympic athletes with a “gigantic hug.”
The closing ceremony will be held at Stade de France, the national stadium.
CBC will provide daily live coverage throughout the Paralympics on the CBC TV network, CBC Gem, the Paris 2024 website and the Paris 2024 mobile app for Android and iOS devices.
With files from The Associated Press
