Things You May Have Missed At The 2024 Paralympics! 

With over 4,400 athletes vying for 549 gold medals across 22 sports over 11 action-packed days, the Paris Paralympic Games have been an incredible spectacle for Paralympic sport. 

There were 97 world records broken at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, with 40 of them in Para Athletics – 21 were in the field events, and 19 world records were broken on the track and road, all the way from the 100m to the marathon.

You can see our Para Athletics recap of Day 1, Days 2 & 3, Days 4-6 and the Marathons and Days 7-9. 

Here are some of the highlights of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. 

A GOLDEN GAMES FOR PARALYMPICS GB

It was a golden Games for Paralympics GB who finished second in the overall medal table, returning with 49 golds, 44 silvers and 31 bronze medals – eight more golds than the team won in Tokyo. Swimming was the most successful sport overall with 32 medals, and Para Athletes won 18 medals between them.

The team competed in 19 different sports, and won medals in 18 of them – they only missed out in wheelchair rugby when the mixed team lost in the bronze medal match.

More than half of 215 members of the Paralympics GB team won a medal. 

Three GB athletes won five medals each: Poppy Maskill (swimmer), Alice Tai (swimmer) and Sammi Kinghorn (wheelchair athlete). Poppy was the only GB athlete to win three golds, with 11 more athletes winning two golds each. 

China won the most medals overall with 220 (94 gold), GB second with 124 (49 golds), and USA were third with 105 (36 golds). 

INCREDIBLE PERFORMANCES ON AND OFF THE TRACK

Dame Sarah Storey, who at 46-years-old was competing in her ninth Paralympic Games, won her 19th Paralympic gold medal. She’s competed in swimming and road cycling and has won 29 Paralympic medals in total. Her first Games was Barcelona 1992.

British archer Jodie Grinham was the first athlete to win a Paralympic medal while pregnant, and she won an individual bronze and team gold in Paris while seven months pregnant with her second child. 

China’s Jiang Yuyan, nicknamed the ‘Flying Fish’, was the most successful athlete at the 2024 Paralympic Games, winning seven individual gold medals in the pool, and breaking two world records. It’s the 19-year-old’s second Games after winning four medals in Tokyo. 

Switzerland’s Catherine Debrunner was the most successful person in Para Athletics. Competing in the T54 wheelchair category, she won silver in the 100m, then golds in the 400m, 800m, 1500m, 5000m and the Marathon. 

GB’s Hannah Cockroft won her eighth and ninth Paralympic golds in Paris. She’s won gold medals in London, Rio, Tokyo and Paris. 

Two of the eight athletes on the Refugee Paralympic Team won medals in Paris. Zakia Khudadadi won bronze in the Women’s Para Taekwondo K44-47kg, and Guillaume Junior Atangana also won bronze in his event, the Men’s 400m T11. These are the first ever medals for the Refugee Paralympic Team.

GB wheelchair marathoner David Weir finished fifth in the men’s marathon in what will be his final Paralympics. Paris was Weir’s seventh Paralympic Games, and he’s won a total of 10 Paralympic medals, including four at the London Paralympics in 2012. 

SUCCESS FOR YOUNG & OLD

The youngest athlete competing in the Games was GB’s Para Swimmer Iona Winnifrith, and she won a silver medal in the Women’s 100m Breaststroke SB7. There was also success for 14-year-old Bly Twomey who won two medals for ParalympicsGB in Para Table Tennis. 

The oldest competitor in the Games was 62-year-old New Zealand’s Para Shooter Greg Reid. The oldest medallist was Japan’s Ito Tomoya who won bronze in Men’s 400m – T52 at the age of 61. He only decided to try out wheelchair racing after he accidentally ordered a racing wheelchair. 

BROKEN RECORDS & BROKEN HEARTS IN THE WOMEN’S T12 MARATHON

Morocco’s Fatima Ezzahra El Idrissi won the Women’s T12 Marathon in 2:48:36, almost six minutes quicker than the previous world record for a visually-impaired athlete. 

But there was drama and heartbreak for the third-placed finisher, Spain’s Elena Congost and guide Mia Carol Bruguera, who crossed the line in 3:00:48. 

As they approached the finish, the guide was clearly struggling, and just a couple of metres from the line appeared close to falling, with Congost grabbing hold of him, but in doing so she briefly let go of the guide rope between them – rules state that the pair must be connected with the 50cm guide rope at all times. She was disqualified and Japan’s Misato Michishita, who finished three minutes behind Congost, was awarded bronze.

Congost later said: “I would like everyone to know that I have not been disqualified for cheating, but rather I have been disqualified for being a person and for an instinct that comes to you when someone is falling and is to help or support them.” 

WONDERFUL WOODHALLS

Did you see The Woodhalls in Paris? USA’s Tara Davis-Woodhall won Olympic gold in the women’s long jump a few weeks ago, and then her husband, Paralympian Hunter Woodhall, won gold in the men’s 400m T62 final. 

“It was a dream for us to both win gold and now we have. We’ll be wearing these golds for the rest of our lives,” said Hunter.

A GAMES FOR POSITIVE CHANGE

We’ll finish with the rousing closing address of the Paralympics given by Andrew Parsons, President of the International Paralympic Committee. 

You celebrated the start of the inclusion revolution with a Paralympic party in Paris.

Together with fans all over the world, you idolised the athletes and were in awe at what you saw. 

Free from barriers, Paralympians performed to their best. 

Through sport they showed what humanity can achieve when given an opportunity to succeed. 

You saw strength in difference. But now it is time for you and society to make a difference. 

Inspired by sport, I ask you all to be inspired with your commitment to change. 

Appreciation and applause must be followed by acceptance and action. 

Changed attitudes must lead to changed views. 

Words of praise must be replaced by words of conviction. 

Obstacles must become opportunities. 

We all have a collective responsibility to use the momentum of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games to make the world around us more inclusive. 

What a Paralympic legacy this would be, not just for these athletes, but the world’s 1.3 billion persons with disabilities that they represent. 

Beyond 12 days of sport, we must break down the barriers that exist in society. We must enable and empower persons with disabilities to excel outside of the field of play, in education, in employment, in entertainment, in government, in civil society – everywhere! 

Diversity and difference should not divide us. 

Diversity and difference should unite us, drive change and make this planet better for everyone.

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Did you have any highlights from the Paralympics? 

Image from Imagecomms.