The 2024 Paralympics: The Off-Balance Guide.
Let the Games begin!
The anticipation is always the hardest part.
But we’ve made it.
With the Flame lit, the athletes in Paris and the final few preparations being made? The clock is counting down the hours and the 2024 Summer Paralympics, set to begin on August 28th, are almost upon us.
So before the Games get underway, consider this newsletter your unofficial guide: from the basics to some quick fast-facts.
Let’s get to it.
The What and the Where:
Following the traditional two-week hiatus post-Olympics, the Paralympics will run from August 28th until September 8th. Venues, infrastructure and athlete housing across Paris (and its surrounding metro area) have all been adjusted and reorganized to best accommodate over 4,000 Para-athletes (including a team of 126 Canadians).
Featuring 23 sports over 12 days of competition, the 2024 Paralympics will be the seventeenth iteration of the Summer Games. The first version of the Games were held in Rome in 1960, although it hosted only wheelchair-using athletes. Come 1976, with expanded criteria, the Toronto Games were host to almost 2,000 athletes from 40 countries around the world.
As highlighted by Western University’s Laura Misener (as the question is often asked), hosting both events, the Olympics and the Paralympics simultaneously, would be impossible logistically. Not only when considering the various accessibility implications but the impractically of organizing some 15,000-plus athletes across 50 distinct sports during a shared two-week period. The Olympic and Paralympian events, athletes and resulting coverage? They all deserve their own focus. By combining both events, this wouldn’t be possible.
And in case you’re unaware: the Special Olympics, which exclusively feature athletes with intellectual disabilities, are a distinct and entirely separate entity from the Paralympics, which primarily host athletes with physical challenges of various categorizations.
How-to-Watch and Canadian Connections.
In Canada, CBC is the official broadcaster of the Summer Games across the country. You can also stream the Games through the official Paralympic website.
On August 27th, wheelchair basketball star Patrick Anderson and Para-swimmer Katarina Roxon were announced as the Canadian flag-bearers for the opening ceremonies. Anderson, 45, competing in his sixth Paralympics, has previously won three gold medals with the Canadian Men’s Team, in addition to a silver in 2008. Roxon, 31, is the first Canadian Para-swimmer to compete in five Games. She is a two-time Paralympic medalist.
The Games will also have an increased social presence, by way of Canadian athletes, like sitting volleyball star Allison E. Lang, who has been documenting her journey to Paris on her Instagram (she also has a website, which you can visit here). In addition to being a Paralympian, Lang is also a model, speaker, content creator and advocate: using her profile to impact growth, self-love and acceptance, no matter who you are.
When I was five years old, my parents enrolled me in a therapeutic horseback riding.
The idea being, as a child with mild-spastic CP, that not only would it be a great benefit to me physically, it would also act as a social outlet too. To see and interact with people, like me, who faced a set of unique physical challenges (and they were right).
Five years later, I also became involved in competitive para ice hockey, further expanding not just my world-view but my sporting potential, as well. Sure, stand-up/able-bodied hockey was out of the question… but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be and wasn’t, an athlete.
In the grand scheme of things, I know I am remarkably fortunate, my disability, not being as prevalent as it may be for others.
And although I don’t ride horses or play para hockey competitively anymore, with life having pulled me in a different direction (writing, naturally), I would be remiss if I didn’t keep a close eye on the Paralympic sporting scene.
Over the next two weeks in Paris, you’ll see elite athletes at the absolute pinnacle of their chosen disciplines, representing their countries at the highest level.
Make sure to enjoy it, reader.
That is, witnessing greatness, in real-time.
Great article, Ryan! I’ve often wondered about the difference between Special Olympics and Paralympics