In Beijing, the Paralympic Games are coming to an end. A few events on the program this Sunday, March 13, and the closing ceremony, will celebrate the athletes.
After this edition, we can note the best in terms of media coverage and, to hear some athletes, a greater degree of professionalism is developing with the arrival of new sponsors.
The 2012 London Games will have been a real turning point in accelerating the visibility of the Paralympic Games. The world of Paralympism now has an appointment in 2024 in Paris. The organizing committee intends to take inspiration from this English edition to do as well, or even better, as Tony Estanguet, boss of the Paris Games, points out. The stakes are simple: raise awareness of the Paralympic disciplines and better understand the athletes with incredible backgrounds. The icing on the cake will be to leave a legacy following the Games, by changing our views and our knowledge of disability.
Many things are to be remembered from this 2022 edition. We can already mention the XXL performance on the tracks of the Ukrainian delegation, and the emotion when they entered the stadium at the opening ceremony, where their elegance and sobriety will have given a beautiful message of peace.
Minute cocorico obliges: impossible to miss the tenacity of a Marie Bochet, a Benjamin Daviet, a Maxime Montagionni, who after a failure will have found magical resources to win new medals.
How not to highlight Arthur Bauchet? Such a sparkling look and smile for this young multi-medal skier in Beijing who, with his illness and indefinable pain in his legs, still finds the energy to get back on his skis. Or the fight of Cécile Hernandez, the Paralympic snowboard cross champion, the oldest of the delegation, who for a history of classification will have already had to win a legal fight before establishing herself as a queen on the Chinese track.
I quote medalists here, but there are so many other inspiring stories. Thanks in particular to the La Relève program, organized by the Paralympic Committee, which brings people with disabilities closer to a sporting activity. Coming from this program, snowboarder Laurent Vaglica, victim of a motorcycle accident in 2015, now represents the French team at these Games.