Paris, France — It was one of those sky blue sunset times in Paris when the early evening sky is lined with pink turning orange. The Summer Games chapter 2 officially opened in Paris last night with the opening ceremony for the Paralympics 2024. All eyes were on the Place de la Concorde filled with song, dance and celebration followed by the parade of the 168-delegation of athletes down the Champs-Elysées to the Concorde to resounding cheers from onlookers, volunteers and the sold-out crowd of more than 50,000 spectators. Many of the teams chose to parade in traditional costume making the ceremony even more vibrant. And it was the first time that the opening ceremony for the Paralympics was held outside of a stadium. There appears to be a renewed interest in the Paralympics on the heels of the highly successful and beautifully orchestrated Paris Olympic Games 2024.

And in keeping with the rich cultural program surrounding the Olympics and Paralympics, an educational and charismatic exhibition revolving around the Paralympic Games is being played out at the Pantheon, one of the city’s most spectacular monuments and the burial place of leading figures whose commitment to the French nation or whose defense of the values of the French republic received official recognition from their country. The show, entitled Paralympic History, from Integration in Sport to Social Inclusion, 1948-2024, takes a look at those who, through their roles within the Paralympic movement, have shaped a history based on pride in difference and demands for a more inclusive society. It is also a tribute to various great men and women, including Louis Braille, the inventor of the tactile writing system, who was inducted into the Panthéon in 1952.

It has been quite a story that also gave rise to a militant movement as the archives, posters, photographs, sports equipment, artefacts and audiovisual documents on display demonstrate the gradual integration of athletes with a variety of disabilities, on the one hand, and the changes in the discourse, images and materials associated with competitive sport, on the other. It all began back in 1948 with the hospital games organised at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital in the United Kingdom where Dr Ludwig Guttmann initiated the movement with an innovative experiment to promote rehabilitative sport: a “Sports Day” archery competition on 29 July 1948, the opening day of the London Olympic Games. It wasn’t until 1960 in Rome when the first Para-Olympic Games were held and reserved only for wheelchair users with spinal cord injuries. But amputees, followed by blind and partially sighted people were also gradually allowed to officially participate. It wasn’t until 1984 that athletes with cerebral palsy were included at the New York Games in Mitchell Park which were officially inaugurated by President Ronald Reagan (in the past the Paralympic Games were not always held in the same city as the Olympic Games). And the Paralympics are raising awareness about the difficulty of navigating cities for wheel chair users.The staging of the Pantheon exhibition, for example, has been designed to ensure a comfortable visit for everyone, with furniture at the right height, screens at the right angle and sufficient room to move around. The Pantheon which is managed by the Centre des Monuments Nationaux (CMN) is in and of itself worthy of a visit while the Paralympic exhibition in on until September 29th. ©Trish Valicenti for The Gourmet Gazette. Place du Panthéon 75005 Paris, France. Tel: +33 (0)1 44 32 18 00. https://www.paris-pantheon.fr/en