For some of the elite athletes competing at the Paralympic Games is two-fold, to reach for greater heights and to create awareness around the plight of Paralympians and disabled people across the globe.

168 national delegations will be competing in the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games with 549 gold medals up for grabs.

Paralympians from different corners of the world have arrived in Paris. German long jumper and multiple gold medalist, Markus Rehm, is raring to go.

“The gold medal, of course, that’s the big goal. I mean I won four of them, three in the long jump, one in the relay, yeah, and I hope I can defend the title, that is definitely the biggest goal, the world record. Well, it’s quite a big job to do. But of course, we want to jump as far as possible and that’s definitely the plan but I think mostly we will focus, or I will focus on defending the title and then let’s see how far we can get.”

Moroccan athlete, Youssra Karim, who specialises in throwing events, has won three career silver medals, one at the Paralympics in Tokyo three years ago and two at World Championships.

She believes she can go one better in Paris.

“It’s my third Paralympic Games, I got a medal in Tokyo, a silver medal, and I got a gold medal in the World Championship in Kobe, and now I’m preparing to win a gold medal also in this Paralympic Games 2024, and I hope to win a gold medal, and why not a world record. I trained hard for that, I hope I can do it.”

Meanwhile, Dutch wheelchair tennis legend and 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, Diede de Groot, would love to successfully defend the two gold medals she won in Tokyo three years ago.

But for de Groot, the Paralympic Games is also about growing disabled sports and creating awareness.

“Knowing that it’s going to get better every year, so we’re going to step up, we stepped up for Rio, we stepped up from Tokyo, we are so visible and I think we need to see it as like a challenge, to make it even better, we need to see it as a challenge to make it more visible for other people, and if everyone is like along on that journey, then we can make it grow as athletes as well, so hopefully we can see it as a challenge as well to hopefully make it even better for the next one.”

In the meantime, the torch relay continues with its journey in the French Capital.

The climax will be the lighting of the cauldron during the Opening Ceremony this evening. It will remain lit until the closing ceremony on the eighth of next month.

--SABC--