Paris 2024 Paralympics eyes sell-out crowds to beat London record: IPC
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Olympics - Paris 2024 Olympics Press Conference - Paris, France - July 18, 2023 The logo of the Paris 2024 Paralympics is pictured on the building of the Organising Committee headquarters ahead of a press conference REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File photo
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PARIS – The Paris 2024 Paralympics aim to sell every one of the 2.8 million tickets before the global event gets under way to top the record figures set in London in 2012, International Paralympic Committee (IPC) president Andrew Parsons said.
Tickets for the Paralympics, to be held between Aug 28 and Sept 8, weeks after the Olympics in the French capital, go on sale on Oct 9.
“The ambition is to sell each and every ticket, 2.8 million, and then this will make Paris the No. 1 in terms of ticket sales. London 2012 was 2.7 million,” Parsons told Reuters in an interview exactly one year before the Games begin.
“We want these Games to sell out even before the opening ceremony. So what we want is that we sell every ticket before the start of the Games,” he said.
Their strategy is affordable prices starting at €15 (S$22) and a spectacular backdrop with iconic venues, such as Roland Garros for wheelchair tennis and the Eiffel Tower for five-a-side football.
It will be the first Olympics and Paralympics to have spectators since the delayed Tokyo summer Games in 2021 and the Beijing 2022 winter edition were staged without fans due to Covid-19.
“After two editions of the Games, spectators are back... with incredible venues at the heart of the city,” Parsons said.
“We will have this combination of the tourists that already will be here, people coming for the Games and altogether creating this incredible environment.”
“There will also be a higher quality of athletes,” he added.
What has not yet been decided is whether Russian and Belarusian athletes will take part in the Paralympics that will kick off with an opening ceremony along the Champs-Elysees.
The IPC had suspended the paralympic committees of both countries and banned their athletes from competing following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Belarus has acted as a staging ground for Russian troops and weapons.
Although an appeal against the suspension was upheld in 2023, Russian and Belarusian para-athletes remain banned.
The IPC will decide in September whether to allow them to compete in Paris and the decision will come just weeks before the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decides on their participation at the Paris Olympics.
Parsons, who is also an IOC member, does not expect one to influence the other.
“We work together from an operational side when it comes to the Games but we are different organisations, we have different constituencies and we have different governance structures,” he said.
“So from time to time, we may take different decisions on similar topics.” REUTERS
