Paris Paralympic Games to open in City of Light
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00:00For more than a week now, the athletes have been getting their bearings.
00:04They're ready to show their prowess to the world.
00:08In total, 4,400 athletes are competing in the Paris Paralympic Games.
00:12A record 45% of them are women.
00:15Ten medal events have been added to give women and those with high support needs more visibility.
00:21We are role models, and I think that's so important for the next generation of the next little girl
00:26with, you know, outer legs or with whatever disability.
00:30And it's so important for the visibility to see what we're capable of as women and women with disabilities.
00:36A key means of raising awareness through representation,
00:39while also bringing joy to spectators and athletes,
00:42the events will occur across iconic sites in the French capital, as they did for the Olympic Games.
00:48The Château de Versailles is hosting the para-equestrian events.
00:52At the Grand Palais, there's para-fencing and para-taekwondo.
00:55At Les Invalides, it's para-archery.
00:58Some of the sites had to quickly switch out their decors.
01:01It's no longer beach volleyball at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.
01:04It's now blind football.
01:06In total, there are 22 Paralympic sports,
01:09and only two do not have an Olympic equivalent.
01:12They are boccia, which resembles petanque,
01:15and goalball, which requires total silence in the stadium
01:18so the visually impaired or blind players can hear the balls, which have bells inside them.
01:24It's a cord here, so this is what the athletes feel, so that they know the boundaries.
01:31While there are around half as many sports as during the Olympics,
01:34there are more medals.
01:36549 of them are up for grabs, compared to the 329 during the Olympics.
01:42This is because athletes are split up according to the kind and degree of their impairments.
01:46In total, 10 types of disabilities are taken into account.
01:50They're split over three categories, visual, physical and also cognitive impairments.
01:55Some two million spectators are roaring to go,
01:58to cheer the athletes on and to bask in the joys of sports for a little while longer.