The Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony marks the final chapter of a long summer of sport in Paris

PARIS (AP) — Just weeks after the Olympic Games, Paris opened the 2024 Paralympic Games on Wednesday with a nearly four-hour opening ceremony in the heart of the city.

Against the backdrop of a setting sun, thousands of athletes paraded down the famous Champs-Elysées to Place de la Concorde in central Paris, where French President Emmanuel Macron officially declared the Paralympic Games open.

About 50,000 people watched the ceremony from stands built around the iconic square, the largest in Paris and visible from afar because of the ancient Egyptian Obelisk. Accessibility for athletes in wheelchairs was made easier by laying strips of asphalt along the avenue and across the square.

More than 4,000 athletes with physical, visual and intellectual disabilities will compete in 22 sports from Thursday to September 8. According to the organizers, more than 2 million of the 2.8 million tickets for the various Paralympic events have already been sold.

The opening ceremony took place outside the walls of a stadium, just as it did when the Olympic Games opened in the city on July 26. Fighter planes flew overhead, leaving behind red, white and blue smoke in the colours of the French national flag, before the delegations entered the square in alphabetical order.

Some delegations were huge – more than 250 athletes from Brazil – and others were small – less than a handful from Barbados and just three from Myanmar.

The Ukrainian delegation was loudly cheered and several people from the audience stood up to applaud.

Flag bearers Steve Serio and Nicky Nieves led the U.S. team delegation. The French arrived last to cheers from the crowd, who then sang along to popular French songs, including “Que Je T’aime” by the late rocker Johnny Hallyday.

Throughout the show, directed by Thomas Jolly, who also directed the Olympic Opening Ceremony, singers, dancers and musicians with and without disabilities performed seamlessly together on stage, projecting a theme of inclusion and overcoming physical differences. Lucky Love, a French singer who lost his left arm at birth, was accompanied by performers in wheelchairs. Other acts featured dancers with crutches.

International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons said he hoped the Paris Paralympic Games would spark an “inclusion revolution” that extends beyond sport.

“The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games show what people with disabilities can achieve at the highest level when the barriers to success are broken down,” he said in a speech. “The fact that these opportunities will largely only exist in sport in 2024 is shocking. It is proof that we can and must do more to promote disability inclusion — whether on the playing field, in the classroom, in the concert hall or in the boardroom.”

As the ceremony drew to a close, the Paralympic torch was carried into the area by former Olympic wheelchair tennis gold medallist Michaël Jérémiasz, who was surrounded on stage by dozens of torchbearers. Five French Paralympians lit the Olympic cauldron, which was designed to resemble a hot air balloon and glowed golden at night.

The Paralympic flag was raised high in the night sky and its emblem adorned the top of the Arc de Triomphe, about 3 kilometres away.

Although Wednesday night’s show kicked off at 8pm local time, fans had gathered hours earlier under a blazing sun to secure prime positions along the way. As performers entertained the crowd on stage, volunteers danced alongside Paralympians waving their national flags and the sky glowed with a postcard-perfect orange glow.

Tony Estanguet, the president of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, called the Paralympians “immense champions, with whom we have the honour to be together tonight.”

The first medals to be handed out on Thursday will be for taekwondo, table tennis, swimming and track cycling. Athletes will be grouped according to their level of disability to ensure as level a playing field as possible.

The closing ceremony will take place at the Stade de France, the national stadium.