By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
@GettyImages.
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.
The main ceremony is being held at Place de la Concorde, on a perfect summer evening in the heart of the city, following a parade along the Champs-Elysees from the Arc de Triomphe.
Organisers estimate 65,000 people will be present, with spectators able to watch the parade for free before the ticketed open-air event at Place de la Concorde.
Blue, white and red smoke of the Tricolore was released by the Patrouille de France aerial display team in clear skies before the athletes made their entrance.
Team South Africa is led by track athlete Mpumelelo Mhlongo, and swimmer Kat Swanepoel as the country’s flag bearers.
Mhlongo is a T44 world record holder in the 100m, 200m, and long jump, a Paralympic Games record holder, and the 2024 winner of Athletics South Africa’s Sportsman of the Year with a disability.
He won South Africa’s first gold medal at the 2024 Para Athletics World Championships in Japan.
The 30-year-old dominated the T44 men’s 100m race, coming first in a time of 11.34.
At the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships at the Charlety Stadium in Paris, Mhlongo also won SA’s first gold medal in the T44 Men’s 100m, in a time of 11.46.
Swanepoel competes in the SM5 200m Individual Medley, S5 50m backstroke, 100m freestyle, 200m freestyle, SB4 100m breaststroke, and S14 400m freestyle.
She bagged the country’s first medal at the Manchester 2023 Allianz Para Swimming World Championships, and a silver medal in the women’s 50m breaststroke SB3.
SB3 is for breaststroke swimmers with coordination affected to a low degree in the upper trunk and arms, with the rest of the trunk and legs highly affected, and those with an absence of limbs.
The first of 11 days of sporting action takes place on Thursday as France hosts a summer Paralympic Games for the first time.
Athletes from 184 delegations are set to take part in the 22 Paralympic sports, competing for a total of 549 gold medals in Paris.
Artistic director Thomas Jolly promised the opening ceremony would be “a spectacle that will showcase the Paralympic athletes and the values that they embody”, and feature “performances that have never been seen before”.
Sprinter Nantenin Keita and Para-triathlete Alexis Hanquinquant are the French flagbearers at the opening ceremony.
International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons believes Paris will deliver “the most spectacular Paralympic Games ever”.