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≡ PARIS 2024 ≡
No worries for the Paris 2024 organizers as ticket sales were announced as reaching 2.3 million as of Tuesday, out of a total available of a bit more than 2.5 million. Paris 2024 chief executive Etienne Thobois said in a news conference that sales had picked up significantly after the opening of the Paris Olympic Games and has continued:
“We are surfing on the spirit of the Olympic Games, with an audience that has adhered to this spirit. Now, we have such a large audience that adheres to the Paralympic spirit. It is a positive signal in a society that needs more positive signals.”
Thobois emphasized the co-promotion of the Olympic and Paralympic Games as a factor. FrancsJeux.com reported the close ties:
“A common logo, identical competition sites, reinforced communication around the Paralympic Games, with the launch last year of the first Paralympic Day. The return match after the first leg. Two parts of the same project.”
The XVII Paralympic Games will close on Sunday.
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Answering the call by the International Paralympic Committee to find a continuing home for the IPC’s agitos logo, Valerie Pecresse, the President of the Ile-de-France region – which includes Paris – posted on X on Wednesday (computer translation from the original French):
“Ready for the Agitos to remain on the façade of the Île-de-France Region Headquarters in Saint-Ouen, a stone’s throw from the Athletes’ Village, as a signal that obliges us in the years to come to build an inclusive and accessible region!”
The IPC agitos are currently adorning the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, but with no long-term plan to keep them there.
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At the La Defense Arena, six-time Paralympian Jessica Long of the U.S. continues to forge an unforgettable legacy, winning her 30th career Paralympic medal by winning the women’s S8 400 m Freestyle in swimming on Wednesday.
It’s her first medal of the 2024 Games; she started at Athens 2004 and has won 17 golds, eight silvers and five bronzes. Her 30-medal total ranks her equal-fourth all-time and are the second-most ever in swimming behind all-time medal leader Trischa Zorn of the U.S., who won 55 medals from 1980-2004.
Long said afterwards, “I wanted to get to 30. That’s the goal. It’s so hard to prove can I do it again and again. This is my sixth Paralympic Games.
“I was proud of my first Paralympic medal when I was 12 years old and I won by a tenth of a second and this to me is probably right up there. Just going back and showing my friends and family that I won a gold medal, there’s nothing better.”
Long, now 32, competed at Athens 2004 as a 12-year-old! In Paris, she finished sixth in the women’s S8 100 m Back, fourth in the women’s S8 200 m Medley and now a win in the 400 m Free (S8), her fourth time winning that event. She still has the women’s 100 m butterfly (S8) to go, on Saturday.
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At the Stade de France, American Tatyana McFadden won her 21st career Paralympic medal and 20th in track & field with a silver in the women’s T54 100 m in 15.67. A five-time winner of the New York City Marathon in the women’s wheelchair division, McFadden is in her seventh Paralympic Games and owns eight track & field golds, eight silvers and four bronzes, plus a Winter Paralympic silver in women’s cross-country skiing 1,000 m from 2014.
The 19-year-old Ezra Frech – in his second Paralympic Games – surprised himself with his victory in the men’s T63 100 m in a lifetime best of 12.06 on Monday, then got the gold he was gunning for, with a win on Tuesday in the men’s T63 high jump at 1.94 m (6-4 1/4), a Paralympic Games record.
He also finished fifth in the T63 men’s long jump at 6.58 m (21-7 1/4).
Frech had finished fifth in the high jump and eighth in the long jump at Tokyo 2020.
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With four days remaining, swimmers Ihar Boki (neutral/BLR) and Italy’s Carlotta Gilli are the biggest winners so far with five medals each. Boki has five golds and Gilli has two golds, a silver and two bronzes.
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