Paris Paralympics 2024 opening ceremony Highlights: Paris 2024 Paralympics declared officially open

The live blog session has concluded. For more news, views and updates, stay tuned with Moneycontrol.com.

Florent Manaudou, the French flagbearer at the Paris 2024 Olympics, runs from the Champs Elysées to bring the Flame at the Place de la Concorde. Manaudou gives it to former Wheelchair tennis player Michael Jeremiasz, as he arrives in front of the obelisk.

The sequence starts with a video of the highlights of the Torch Relay, which began on 24 August in Stoke Mandeville. After its journey across France over several days, the Paralympic Flame enters the Place de la Concorde.

Two Paralympic athletes, a judge and a coach take the Paralympic Oath on behalf of their peers and pledge to respect and promote the Paralympic values: determination, equality, inspiration and courage.

The Paralympic Anthem is titled “Anthem of the Future”. It was composed by Frenchman Thierry Darnis in 1996 at the request of the IPC.

The Paralympic flag is brought on stage by John McFall, Beijing 2008 Paralympian, silver medalist in Para Athletics and Paralympian and first astronaut with a disability to have joined the European Space Agency. It is then raised while the Paralympic Anthem is performed by Luan Pommier.

It’s tough to determine if we’re witnessing a dance performance, a sports event, or an art work in this elaborately choreographed presentation. The performance includes the two main groups we’ve seen before. In this new setting, they collaborate, fusing dance, sport, and art into a fictitious game that emphasises teamwork, in which people with and without disabilities invent new sports in which everyone can participate.

President Emmanuel Macron says in French: “I declare the Games of the XVII Paralympiad open!”

Andrew Parsons, President of the International Paralympic Committee addressed the gathering with a passionate speech motivating the athletes participating in the Paris Paralympics 2024.

The French flag is being hoisted on the tunes of the French national anthem.

The artist Lucky Love sings 'My Ability' with performers around him on the stage. A creative masterpiece!

The French delegation makes its way across the arena, while the song Les Champs-Elysées sung by American-French singer Joe Dassin is sounded in the background.

The largest Refugee Paralympic delegation in history is parading.

India’s flag-bearers at the Paris Paralympics 2024 opening ceremony- Sumit Antil and Bhagyashree Yadav along with the Indian contingent joins the party.

The parade of nations continue with Germany, Argentina and other athletes make way to the middle amid huge cheers from the volunteers and the public.

The flag-bearers are here. Starting with Afghanistan and other participating countries to follow.

A lot of ‘Phryges’ - The mascots of the Paris Paralympics Games take over the stage.

Christine and the Queens performs a new version of legendary French singer Édith Piaf’s iconig song “Non, je ne regrette rien”.

Frenchman Théo Curin becomes taxi driver and welcomes the French athletes to Paralympics. French president and Emmanuel Macron and Paralympics president Andrew Parsons shake hands amid huge cheers from the spectators.

Canadian pianist opens the cultural party alongside 140 dancers and performers for the big countdown and the start of the artistic show.

It’s time for Paris 2024 again! The golden hour in the ‘city of love’, the Opening Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games starts now at the Place de la Concorde!!!

The three elements of the Agitos (from the Latin meaning “I move”) encircling a central point symbolise motion & emphasise the role of the Paralympic Movement in bringing athletes together from all corners of the world to compete and achieve sporting excellence. The symbol also emphasises the fact that Paralympic athletes are constantly inspiring and exciting the world with their performances: always moving forward and never giving up.

Organizers say more than 2 million tickets have been sold for the Paris Paralympics. Competition begins Thursday with the first medals handed out in taekwondo, table tennis and track cycling. Athletes are grouped by impairment levels to ensure as level a playing field as possible. Only two sports on the program, goalball and boccia, don't have an Olympic equivalent.

Reports indicate that legendary Chinese martial artist and actor Jackie Chan will carry the torch just hours before the opening ceremony begins. The flame was lit on Saturday, August 24, in Stoke Mandeville, the birthplace of the Paralympic Games. It arrived in France on Sunday, having travelled through the Channel Tunnel, with wheelchair fencing medallist Emmanuelle Assmann among those carrying it.

Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman to transform the Paralympic ceremony. Ekman’s performance will centre around dance, featuring over 150 dancers, including those with disabilities. He plans to blend choreographed dance with newly composed music by Victor Le Masne. Ekman is renowned for his 2016 production of Swan Lake in Oslo, where he created a stage lake using 6,000 litres of water.

Sumit Antil and Bhagyashree Yadav have been chosen as the flag-bearers for India at the Paris Paralympics 2024 opening ceremony.

The opening ceremony will be available for live streaming on the Jio Cinema app and website in India.

Competition begins Thursday with the first medals handed out in taekwondo, table tennis and track cycling. Athletes are grouped by impairment levels to ensure as level a playing field as possible. Only two sports on the program, goalball and boccia, don't have an Olympic equivalent.

The opening ceremony of the Paris Paralympics 2024 will begin at 11:30 PM IST (8 PM local time) on Wednesday, August 28.

Artistic director Thomas Jolly, who also led the opening ceremony for the Olympics, said the event will “showcase the Paralympic athletes and the values that they embody", and promised “performances that have never been seen before.

Just weeks after hosting the Olympics, the summer of sports in Paris begins its final chapter Wednesday with the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games. More than 4,000 athletes with physical, visual and intellectual impairments will compete in 22 sports over the next 11 days.

Welcome to the live blog of the Opening Ceremony of the Paris Paralympics 2024. A grand celebration awaits to kickstart the Games in Paris.