The Paralympics begin in Paris on Wednesday. In a city still riding the wave of success from the Olympic Games, the talents of remarkable athletes will be on display.

A new generation of Paralympians will be joined by experienced veterans competing in many of the same sensational venues in the centre of the French capital that have hosted the Olympic sports.

From August 28 to September 8, a total of 18 of the 35 Olympic venues will be used for the Paralympics, including the Grand Palais, which received rave reviews as the venue for the fencing and taekwondo competitions.

The Arena La Défense will also be back and will host the 141 Para-swimming events, where gold medals will be awarded. The same goes for the Stade de France, where the athletics competitions will be held.

The opening ceremony will take place on the Place de la Concorde, where skateboarding and other “urban” sports have been held during the Olympic Games. Just like the Olympic ceremony on the Seine, the ceremony will be held outside the main stadium for the first time at the Paralympics.

Ticket sales have been slow; when the Olympics were in full swing, fewer than half of the tickets were reportedly sold. But they have picked up significantly since then, and organizers say several venues are sold out.

All Games bring new stars and this edition is no exception, so look out for American sprinter and high jumper Ezra Frech, who is missing a transfemoral limb and who, at 19, has already attracted a lot of attention in his trip to Paris.

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More familiar names are also returning – British sprinter Jonnie Peacock, who suffered an amputation, was one of the most famous athletes of the London 2012 Games and last year he pulled out his running shoes to launch a comeback and win a medal at the Paralympics for the fourth year in a row.

– Strong Chinese team –

But the message of the Paralympics always goes beyond sport. Andrew Parsons, president of the International Paralympic Committee, told AFP earlier this year that he hoped the Paris Games would put the issues facing disabled people back at the top of the list of global priorities.

Parsons believes the Games will have a “huge impact on how people with disabilities are perceived around the world.”

“This is one of our main expectations for Paris 2024. We believe that people with disabilities must be put back on the global agenda,” said the Brazilian.

He argued that in recent years disability has fallen behind sexual and gender identity.

“We believe that people with disabilities have been left behind. There is very little debate about people with disabilities.”

The top Paralympic team China is sending a strong team into the race – the Chinese dominated the medal table in Tokyo three years ago and won 96 gold medals. Great Britain took second place with 41 gold medals.

Host France is riding the wave of success of its Olympic team and is aiming for a significant improvement on the eleven gold medals it won in 2021.

Ukraine, traditionally one of the most medal-winning nations at the Paralympics, will nevertheless send a team of 140 athletes from 17 sports despite the difficult preparations associated with the war against Russian forces.

Athletes from Russia and Belarus compete under a neutral flag and without team colours, but are not allowed to take part in the opening or closing ceremonies.

Both the Russian and Belarusian associations were suspended following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but their participants are allowed to compete as neutral associations provided they have not shown support for the war.