A silver medal to start the French team’s haul, then gold and more silver. Victories down to the wire to test Les Bleus’s strength of character. The Paris 2024 Paralympics got off to a flying start on Thursday, August 29. And for those who doubted whether the public would be as enthusiastic about this new sporting event as they had been between July 26 and August 11, this first day of competition delivered a convincing answer.
The end of the summer vacations for many families and the proximity of the back-to-school period do not seem to have dampened French enthusiasm for these home Games. At the velodrome in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (west of Paris), the atmosphere rose to a crescendo on Thursday. The stands began to fill up around midday, with the public cheering on para-cyclists Marie Patouillet and Heïdi Gaugain as they opened the qualifying rounds in the women’s 500 m time trial (category C4-C5).
The harvest began at around 3:45 pm, in an arena packed with blue, Italian, Irish, Danish and Argentinian supporters. As at the Tokyo Games, Patouillet gave the French para-cycling team its first medal, in silver. During her two laps of the track, the stadium erupted in cheers of “Go Marie, go Marie!” “I was literally carried along by the crowd,” the track cyclist enthused.
An hour earlier, the atmosphere had already reached fever pitch with Alexandre Lloveras and Yoann Paillot in tandem (men’s 4000 m pursuit). “It was way beyond what we’d imagined,” said Lloveras. “We felt like we had the whole of France behind us.” This wasn’t enough to lift the Tokyo Paralympic champion into the final, and he is now looking toward the road events.
The loud applause of the spectators gathered under the nave of Paris’s Grand Palais was not enough to prevent the elimination of French para-taekwondo veteran Bopha Kong. The 43-year-old four-time world champion, hampered by a knee injury, bowed out after two defeats in the quarter-finals and repechage matches.
‘In difficult moments, it helped us a lot’
The crowd at the Paris La Défense Arena in Nanterre didn’t need a warm-up lap to fire up the stands on the first day of swimming. In the late afternoon, Toulouse native Ugo Didier received a rock star-like ovation from the 15,000 spectators, with the announcer having to call for silence. This fervor accompanied the 22-year-old athlete throughout the men’s 400 m freestyle final, which he won ahead of Italy’s Simone Barlaam and Australia’s Brenden Hall.
“It’s unforgettable. In the last few meters, when I was coming up on the Italian, I could feel that I was going to do it. I could hear the crowd, and that’s what helped me to go for it even more,” commented France’s new swimming idol. “In sports for the disabled, we’re not lucky enough to have audiences like that: At the European or World Championships, we’re in pools with a maximum of 300 people [in the audience]. I’ve never experienced anything like it, and I’ll never experience this again. We’ve got to make the most of it, and I hope it will be a good launch for the para-swimming team and the French team in general.” A few hours later, Les Bleus collected another silver medal by swimmer Alex Portal in the men’s 100 m butterfly (S13).
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