one year before the Games, athletes already in Paris

Not a simple “dress rehearsal”, assure the organizers. Paris receives from Saturday the world championships of para athletics for the 3rd time in its history. Despite everything, the 2024 Paralympic Games are already all heads.

Published on: 07/08/2023 – 09:44Modified on: 07/09/2023 – 09:25

A “competition in its own right”, not “a general rehearsal” of the Paralympic Games. In Paris, where the World Para Athletics Championships begin on Saturday July 8, athletes and organizers want to make their discipline shine, without focusing on 2024.

Logically, one year before the Olympic and Paralympic Games in France, “Paris-2024” invites itself into the speeches of the organizers of this meeting which will end on July 17.

“Of course I’m not going to tell you that we are not using this event to project ourselves into next year, but above all we want to make this one a success”, assures Pierre Rabadan, deputy mayor of Paris for sports. and at the Games.

Pour Marie-Amelie Le Fur, president of the French Paralympic and Sports Committee (CPSF), there is no question of talking about a “dress rehearsal”.

“It would be to diminish the magnitude of these world championships, it is a competition in its own right, which the athletes have prepared, it is a major championship”, she insists to AFP.

“Show what we can do”

In total, nearly 1,350 athletes, representing 107 countries, will tread the track and field of the Charléty Stadium for ten days in the throwing, running and jumping events.

Among them, 34 make up the French group, including the very experienced Nantenin Keita, Paralympic champion in 2016 over 400m, in the T13 category, which includes some visually impaired athletes.

“We are proud to show what we can do,” said the captain of the Blues for the occasion.

Near her, the Dutch Fleur Jong, Paralympic long jump champion, wants this time to win “the only title she lacks” in Paris, where other multi-medal winners are expected like the middle distance champion and Swiss marathon Marcel Hug, seven-time Paralympic gold medalist, or Briton Hannah Cockroft, also crowned seven times (in 100, 200, 400 and 800 m).

Dutch Fleur Jong, here at the Tokyo Paralympic Games on August 28, 2021, is expected in Paris © Thomas LOVELOCK / OIS/IOC/AFP/Archives

Figureheads

To observe them, “100,000 people” are currently expected, says Guy Tisserand, deputy vice-president of the organization, while a paying ticket office has been set up for the event.

A welcome highlight for Marie-Amélie Le Fur who assures that “the French need to identify some figureheads” among their national athletes and will be able to develop “a lasting relationship with the Paralympic movement”.

“It’s always an exceptional event to acculturate the public or the media”, approves for her part Ludivine Munos to AFP, three-time Paralympic swimming champion and now responsible for Paralympic integration for Paris 2024.

The latter, a volunteer for the Worlds, will also be attentive to the implementation of tools for the public with disabilities such as a guidance system within the stadium, low-vision helmets for visually impaired spectators or a device of audio description.

So many ways whose feedback will allow us to “see if the service has provided a better experience”, with a view to 2024 and the Games. Even if for the moment, the time is for athletics.

With AFP