Paralympic 2024 Diary – Opening Ceremony Day!

Paralympic competition officially begins tomorrow, Thursday 29th August and the stage is truly set in Paris for our athletes. We’re on the ground supporting Paralympics Ireland in covering Team Ireland’s performances and hope to bring you a flavour of the colour and excitement of these Games over the next two weeks.

Delegations from 180 countries has descended on Paris including worldwide media, volunteers, fans, families and athletes. Team Ireland athletes have been in Paris acclimatising to the heat, (which is increasing), doing some light training and resting before they take to the world stage.

A quick recap to bring you up to speed for what is an exciting time in sport ahead. The Team Ireland delegation consists of 35 athletes competing across nine different sports. Nine of those athletes we are proud to say have ties with IWA-Sport. They are: Para Swimming, Ellen Keane (Dublin) and Nicole Turner (Laois), Para Athletics, Mary Fitzgerald (Kilkenny) and Shauna Bocquet (Galway), Para Archery, Kerrie Leonard (Meath), Para Table Tennis, Colin Judge (Dublin)Para Powerlifting, Britney Arendse, (Cavan) Para Rowing, Katie O’Brien (Galway), Tiarnán O’Donnell (Limerick).

Yesterday, some of the athletes took a short break to meet up with Taoiseach Simon Harris and Minister of State for Disability Anne Rabbitte at the Irish Embassy as they both wished them well. President Michael D Higgins also sent the team a letter of good luck.

Tonight, athletes will head to the Opening Ceremony which will take place Place de la Concorde and on Avenue des Champs-Elysées in central Paris giving supporters a chance to come together and cheer on the 4,400 athletes ahead of the first day of competition.

First up is Nicole Turner who will compete in the S6 50m Freestyle – Heats around 10am local time whilst Kerrie Leonard, Para Archery will compete in a ranking event also on Thursday, August 29^th.

Over the next two weeks, we’ll keep you up to date on their performances and progression throughout the Games as well as bringing a little of the Games excitement to you. Each day we’ll give you a daily round up and we hope to catch up with some fans in the stands as they cheer on their athletes.

We’ll also look to bring you some coverage of the Wheelchair Basketball and Wheelchair Rugby as a popular sport played in most of IWA-Sport clubs across Ireland.

You can show your support for Team Ireland too by re-sharing our posts or sending us messages of good luck.