Great Britain are celebrating another stellar performance at the Paralympic Games with more golds and more medals in total than in Tokyo three years ago, amid a warning “not to take our eyes off the ball” as the global level of competition continues to rise.
Paris 2024 has raised the bar for disability sport both inside and outside of competition with organisers celebrating the “crazy” experience delivered by hordes of passionate French fans. For Britain there is contentment at once again finishing second in the medal table, behind only China, with eight more gold medals than three years ago, even as more nations joined the competition and a greater number of countries won medals than ever before.
“Every Paralympic Games we see competition from around the world getting tougher and tougher, so to finish these Games with 49 gold medals and 124 overall – surpassing what we achieved in Tokyo – is testament to our incredible athletes, coaches and support staff,” said Penny Briscoe, the chef de mission of ParalympicsGB.
“The standards set at this Games were exceptional and medals and personal bests have never been more hard fought. If we take an example, Rob Oliver in para-canoeing finished sixth, but he was 1/1400th of a second away from second. We came in with reigning world champions in Claire Taggart and David Smith [in Boccia], who were millimetres away from gold medal matches.
“It is incredibly fine margins. We’ll be going home to reflect on those margins and what it really means and start to unpick it. We need to make sure we don’t take our eye off the ball as we look to LA, where standards, I’m sure, will continue to creep up.”
A total of 117 British athletes will be returning home with medals, with record success in canoeing, triathlon and rowing, and more golds in the pool than ever before. Briscoe said that Britain would remain committed to competing in a broad range of sports, even as other nations increasingly specialise.
“We are an inclusive environment, we’re an inclusive team,” she said. “We’ve won medals across all our impairment groups and that tells a story in terms of what we want to do. I think if we narrowed our focus, then actually we’re not necessarily being true to that. From a ParalympicsGB perspective, we’re an elite disability sport organisation that has huge ambition around using that platform to create social change. That breadth of sport and breadth of impairment groups is absolutely critical to the strategy.”
Dr Kate Barker, the head of performance at UK Sport, said that ParalympicsGB would look to attract more funding from government over time to support its mission and maintain its competitive strength. “If we end up with fewer medals on the table going forward, then I think that’s something we need to discuss in terms of what that means for us,” she said.
“But what’s for sure is it’s not going to get cheaper and we’re not going to start saying: ‘Well, less funding because there’s fewer medals.’ We know it’s going to be more expensive to remain competitive. The government has spoken openly about matching and building on that funding going forward, and that will be absolutely critical for us to achieve success and retain our position in LA.”
As the French capital prepared to return to normal after a summer in which it held the attention of the world, Andrew Parsons, the President of the International Paralympic Committee, said Paris had set a new standard, especially in terms of the experience for both athletes and fans.
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“Quite simply Paris 2024 is the new benchmark for the Paralympic Games, in every aspect, in every single point of the organisation,” he said. “I think that in terms of the athlete experience it has been amazing, the services they have had at the village. At the venues the crowds have been amazing I think after the athletes they are probably the main character of these Games.”
Parsons cited the men’s wheelchair tennis final between Britain’s Alfie Hewett and Tokito Oda as an example of the increased levels of competition at the Games this year. “This match was just phenomenal,” Parsons said, “and not just the final, the whole of the tennis tournament has been amazing. And we saw this in many other sports. One interesting thing is that we probably have fewer world records being broken here.
“To me it’s a positive sign that we don’t have hundreds of world records being broken because this reflects that the Paralympic movement is progressing in a more competitive way.”
The president of Paris 2024, Tony Estanguet, has resorted increasingly to using the word “crazy” to describe what has gone on in the streets and arenas of Paris and he repeated the theme in declaring mission accomplished for the Paralympics and the impact it has had on the country.
“The opening ceremony was a trigger,” he said. “It provided real visibility and created collective emotion; it left images seared on minds in terms of inclusion. 88% of the French population have engaged with the Paralympics and we have seen a lot of crazy things, a lot of atmosphere and enthusiasm. These Games have been as spectacular as the Olympics, this will mark people’s minds and we will all remember.”