Paris 2024 Paralympic Games: United States seeks to maintain its dominance

Two weeks after the conclusion of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the French capital is set to host its first Paralympic Games, which will begin this Wednesday, August 28 and end on September 8.

This will be the 17th edition of the Paralympic Games. Between 4,400 and 4,500 athletes from 185 different countries will be in Paris and will compete in 22 different modalities: wheelchair basketball, boccia, wheelchair fencing, blind soccer, goalball, athletics (track and field), badminton, track cycling, road cycling, weightlifting, equestrian, judo, swimming, canoeing, rowing, taekwondo, table tennis, archery, Olympic shooting, triathlon, wheelchair rugby, wheelchair tennis and sitting volleyball.

Throughout the eleven days of competition, 549 medal events will be held in each and every sport modality. There will be a total of 18 venues, all spread across Paris and the surrounding area.

Opening ceremony for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games

This Wednesday, the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games will be held. Just as it happened in the one for the Olympic Games - which included that controversial offensive performance against Catholicism -, the ceremony will take place outside of a stadium, but, instead of in the Seine River as it was in the previous event, the athletes will walk along the Champs Elysees and will end at the emblematic Place de la Concorde.

As it happened at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, authorities have prepared an extensive security deployment to prevent any problems or unforeseen events from occurring. It is estimated that around 65,000 people will attend the opening ceremony.

U.S. Paralympic dominance

The United States delegation once again swept the Olympic Games, maintaining its dominance in the biggest international sporting event. A superiority that is also evident in the Paralympic Games and that is expected to last after the conclusion of this new edition, starting as one of the great fan favorites.

In the sixteen times the Paralympic Games have been held, the United States has managed to earn a total of 2,066 medals, divided into 731 gold, 656 silver and 679 bronze. In Tokyo 2020, the delegation finished fourth in medals (104 medals), behind China (207), the United Kingdom (124) and the team made up of athletes from the former Soviet republics under the acronym PRC (118).

This fan favorite status is thanks, in large part, to athletes such as Oksana Masters and Matt Stutzman. The cyclist has already won 17 medals in different modalities of both the Summer Paralympic Games and the Winter Paralympic Games: seven gold, seven silver and three bronze. Stutzman starts as a great contender for gold in the archery event.

Also attending will be Hunter Woodhall, whose wife, Tara Davis-Woodhall, won gold in the women's long jump at the Paris 2024 Olympics.