Paralympic Flame lit in Stoke Mandeville

 Staff Report

 PARIS: The Paralympic Flame was officially lit in Stoke Mandeville, the birthplace of the Paralympic Movement, this Saturday, just five days before the start of the seventeenth Paralympic Games in history. The Paralympic Flame lighting ceremony took place on the morning of Saturday 24 August in Stoke Mandeville, a town in Buckinghamshire, England, where the Paralympic Movement was born. The event was attended by British Paralympians Helene Raynsford and Gregor Ewan who, in the presence of Paris 2024 President Tony Estanguet, lit the flame that will travel across France in the coming days. Helene Raynsford, who made history by winning Britain’s first Paralympic gold medal in rowing at Beijing 2008, and Gregor Ewan, a wheelchair curling specialist and three-time Paralympic champion (Sochi 2014, PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022), were responsible for lighting the flame for the first Paralympic Games to be held in Paris.

Raynsford highlighted the significance of the moment: “There are no words to describe the honour of being chosen to light the Paralympic Flame alongside Gregor in the birthplace of the Paralympic Movement. It is a very special moment ahead of a spectacular Paralympic Games”. Ewan emphasised the symbolic importance of Stoke Mandeville in the Paralympic Movement: “Stoke Mandeville is an integral part of the fabric of the Paralympic Movement and I am delighted to have been chosen for this special occasion”. The President of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), Andrew Parsons, was the first torchbearer of the Paralympic Flame and started the relay on the athletics track at Stoke Mandeville. The Brazilian head of the IPC gave an emotional speech, recalling how 76 years ago Sir Ludwig Guttmann laid the foundations of the Paralympic Movement on this very site by organising a sporting competition for Second World War veterans with spinal cord injuries.

“Stoke Mandeville is a sacred and cherished place. What Guttmann created here in 1948 has become one of the world’s greatest sporting events,” said Parsons, underlining the global impact of the Paralympic Games. This lighting ceremony marks the start of a new tradition, similar to the Olympic Games in Olympia, Greece. From this year, the Paralympic Flame will always begin its journey in Stoke Mandeville, in recognition of the town’s fundamental role in the creation and development of the Paralympic Movement. After being lit in Stoke Mandeville, the flame was taken to Folkestone, the last English town before crossing the Channel via the Channel Tunnel. There, 24 British torchbearers, including Raynsford and Ewan, will meet 24 French torchbearers in the midway point of the tunnel for a historic ‘torch kiss’, joining the flames of the two countries. After emerging from the tunnel in Calais, the flame will be split into 12 to travel across France over four intense days from 25 to 28 August. The journey will be led by 1,200 torchbearers who will carry the torch to more than 50 French cities, marking the start of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Torch Relay.