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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Torch route for the 2024 Paris Paralympics unveiled

Less than 10 months before the Paralympic Games in Paris, the route the torch relay will cover was unveiled on Friday, with a departure from the spiritual home of disabled sport at Stoke Mandeville in England.

Published: 10 November 2023 16:28 CET
Torch route for the 2024 Paris Paralympics unveiled
Brazilian swimmer Clodoaldo Silva lighting the Paralympic cauldron during the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games (Photo by YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP)

Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic organisers have unveiled the route for the Paralympic Torch. 

The torch will set off from Stoke Mandeville in the UK, then it will be symbolically passed from 24 British athletes to 24 French ones in the middle of the Channel Tunnel, according to Paralympic.org.

Once in France, 11 other flames will be lit, for a total of 12 different Paralympic torches in reference to the 12 days of the Games.

The torches will criss-cross France, handed off between 1,000 torchbearers while passing through 50 different towns and cities between August 25th to 28th.

Locations were selected on the basis of their commitment to inclusion through sport, or for their unique cultural heritage and symbolism, such as Limoges Cathedral, Strasbourg and the European Parliament.

According to AFP, the short time period – just four days for the entire relay –  is intended to ensure “maximum visibility”, compared to the longer Olympic relay which lasts 80 days.

The main flame, coming from England, will reach the Paris region via Arras, Amiens and Chambly.

As the torches approach the capital, they will pass through several suburbs, including Seine-Saint-Denis where the Games will be hosted, before arriving in Paris. 

Once in Paris on August 28th, the torch will make its way past several emblematic sites, including Pigalle, République, Nation, the Simone de Beauvoir footbridge, the National Institute of Sport, Expertise, and Performance (INSEP), Invalides and the Bois de Boulogne.

The relay will conclude at Place de la Concorde, where it will light the Paralympic cauldron at the opening ceremony. 

“The Paralympic Torch relay promises to be spectacular,” Tony Estanguet, President of the Paris 2024 Organising Committee, said at a press conference on Friday.

“It will go through every French region (…) It promises to be quite magical because there will be coastal cities, cities in the mountains, and rural villages all celebrating the Paralympic Games,” Estanguet said.

The Paralympic Games will run from Wednesday, August 28th to Sunday, September 8th.

READ MORE: Hotels, tickets and scams: What to know about visiting Paris for the 2024 Olympics

Why is the relay starting in the UK?

Stoke Mandeville is considered by many to be the birthplace of Paralympic sport.

Sir Ludwig Guttmann, a German-born Jewish doctor who fled Nazi Germany, first organised the ‘Stoke Mandeville Games’ as an event for disabled war veterans. He saw sport as therapeutic for those recovering from injuries, particularly spinal cord injury.

Eventually, it evolved into the Paralympic Games that we know today.

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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Paris Olympics organisers deny athletes’ beds are ‘anti-sex’

They may be made of cardboard, but the beds at the athletes' village for this year's Paris Olympics have been chosen for their environmental credentials, not to prevent competitors having sex, organisers said.

Published: 18 May 2024 13:19 CEST
Paris Olympics organisers deny athletes' beds are 'anti-sex'

The clarification came after fresh reports that the beds, manufactured by Japanese company Airweave and already used during the Tokyo 2020 Games, were to deter athletes from jumping under the covers together in the City of Love.

“We know the media has had a lot of fun with this story since Tokyo 2020, but for Paris 2024 the choice of these beds for the Olympic and Paralympic Village is primarily linked to a wider ambition to ensure minimal environmental impact and a second life for all equipment,” a spokesman for the Paris Games told AFP.

The bed bases are made from recycled cardboard, but during a demonstration in July last year Airweave founder Motokuni Takaoka jumped on one of them and stressed that they “can support several people on top”.

The Paris Games spokesman underlined that “the quality of the furniture has been rigorously tested to ensure it is robust, comfortable and appropriate for all the athletes who will use it, and who span a very broad range of body types – from gymnasts to judokas”.

The fully modular Airweave beds can be customised to accommodate long and large body sizes, with the mattresses — made out of resin fibre — available with different firmness levels.

After the Games, the bed frames will be recycled while the mattresses and pillows will be donated to schools or associations.

Athletes will sleep in single beds, two or three to a room, in the village, a newly built complex close to the main athletics stadium in a northern suburb of the capital.

A report this week in the New York Post tabloid entitled “‘Anti-sex’ beds have arrived at Paris Olympics” was reported by other media and widely circulated on social media.

Similar claims went viral before the Tokyo Olympics, sometimes fanned by athletes themselves.

To debunk them, Irish gymnast Rhys McClenaghan filmed a video of himself jumping repeatedly on a bed to demonstrate their solidity.

At those Games, during the coronavirus pandemic, organisers, however, urged athletes to “avoid unnecessary forms of physical contact”.

In March, Laurent Dalard, in charge of first aid and health services at Paris 2024, said around 200,000 condoms for men and 20,000 for women will be made available at the athletes’ village during the Games.

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