The opening ceremony of the Paris Paralympic Games will see athletes from 184 countries, including 29 from Belgium, parade down the Champs-Elysées on Wednesday night.
Starting at 20:00, the ceremony will take place outside of a stadium, like that of the Olympic Games. Paralympians will parade down the Champs-Elysées, starting at the Arc de Triomphe and ending at Place de la Concorde.
Thomas Jolly, who was also artistic director for the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony, has described the show as calling for a break from "heroic cliches". The ceremony is entitled ‘Paradox’, which will showcase the heroism of Paralympic athletes as well as the difficulties they face on a day-to-day basis.
Dressage rider Manon Claeys and wheelchair tennis player Joachim Gérard will carry the Belgian flag, representing a delegation of 29 athletes competing across 11 sports.
The team aims to do better than in Tokyo three years ago. Belgium returned from the Japanese capital with 15 medals – 4 gold, 3 silver and 8 bronze. Of those 15 medallists, 14 are once again competing in Paris, which is hosting the Paralympics for the first time.
The first para-athletes to compete on Thursday include swimmer Sam de Visser, who will participate in the 400m freestyle for his first time at the Games.
Francis Rombouts will compete in his division of boccia, a sport related to lawn bowls and pétanque and practiced by people with cerebral palsy or similar neurological conditions.
Piotr Van Montagu will take part in the archery classification round. Table tennis players Laurens Devos and Marc Ledoux will compete in the doubles, starting at the round of 16.
A total of 4,400 para-athletes will take part in the games that run until 8 September. They will compete for a medal in one of the 549 events, most of which are hosted at the same venues used for the recent Olympic Games.
The games’ mascot is a character named ‘Phryge’, equipped with a carbon fibre running blade. A flame will once again be lit in the Tuileries Garden.
Beyond the competitions, the Games aim to continue shaping public perception of Paralympic athletes and people with disabilities to improve social inclusion.
