Paralympic Games opening ceremony starts the final chapter on a long summer of sport in Paris

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Artists perform with fireworks during the Paris 2024 Paralympic Opening Ceremony at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, France, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024. (Julien De Rosa/Pool Photo via AP)

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Members of the Japanese delegation parade during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, on Concorde plaza in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

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The Paralympic flag is raised during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

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The United States athletes parade during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

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Artists perform during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Paris, France. (Gonzalo Fuentes/Pool Photo via AP)

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Flagbearers Mpumelelo Mhlongo of South Africa and Kat Swanepoel of South Africa lead their contingent during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Paris, France. (Gonzalo Fuentes/Pool Photo via AP)

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Artists perform during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Paris, France. (Gonzalo Fuentes/Pool Photo via AP)

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Flagbearers Hernan Barreto of Argentina and Coty Garrone of Argentina lead their contingent during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Paris, France. (Gonzalo Fuentes/Pool Photo via AP)

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Alpha jets form the Patrouille de France fly over the Concorde plaza during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

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French President Emmanuel Macron, right, and IPC president Andrew Parson attend the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

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The crowd attends the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, on the Concorde plaza, with the Grand Palais in background, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

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The crowd attends the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, on the Concorde plaza in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

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French President Emmanuel Macron, right, and IPC president Andrew Parson shake hands during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

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Members of the Swiss delegation parade during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, Pool)

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French President Emmanuel Macron points towards the stage as he sits next to his wife Brigitte while they watch the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, in Paris, Wednesday Aug. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Rodriguez-Scheyer)

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Members of the Australian delegation parade during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, on Concorde plaza in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

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Flagbearers Alexis Hanquinquant of France and Nantenin Keita of France lead their delegation during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Paris, France. (Gonzalo Fuentes/Pool Photo via AP)

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Artists perform during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, Pool)

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Indonesia’s delegation arrives during the Parade of Nations as part of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, France, Wednesday Aug. 28, 2024. (Julien De Rosa/Pool Photo via AP)

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Kenya’s delegation arrives during the Parade of Nations as part of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, France, Wednesday Aug. 28, 2024. (Julien De Rosa/Pool Photo via AP)

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The Obelisk of La Concorde plaza bears the colors of the French flag during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

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French artist Lucky Love sings during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

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The Obelisk of La Concorde plaza and the Eiffel Tower get lightenings during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, on La Concorde plaza in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

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Artists perform during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, at La Concorde square in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, Pool)

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South African dancer Musa Motha performs during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

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Athletes Charles-Antoine Kouakou, Nantenin Keita, Fabien Lamirault, Alexis Hanquinquant and Elodie Lorandi look up after they lit the cauldron during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

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Artists perform during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, at La Concorde square in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, Pool)

By JEROME PUGMIRE

PARIS (AP) — Just weeks after hosting the Olympics, Paris inaugurated the 2024 Paralympics on Wednesday with a nearly four-hour-long opening ceremony in the heart of the city.

Against the backdrop of a setting sun, thousands of athletes paraded down the famed Champs-Elysées avenue to Place de la Concorde in central Paris where French President Emmanuel Macron officially declared the Paralympic Games open.

About 50,000 people watched the ceremony in stands built around the iconic square, which is the biggest in Paris and is visible from afar because of its ancient Egyptian Obelisk. Accessibility for athletes in wheelchairs was facilitated with strips of asphalt laid along the avenue and placed over the square.

More than 4,000 athletes with physical, visual and intellectual impairments will compete in 22 sports from Thursday until Sept. 8. Organizers say more than 2 million of the 2.8 million tickets have been sold for the various Paralympic events.

The opening ceremony was held outside the confines of a stadium, just like when the Olympics opened in the city on July 26. Fighter planes flew overhead, leaving red-white-and blue vapors in the colors of the French national flag, before the delegations entered the square in alphabetical order.

Some delegations were huge — more than 250 athletes from Brazil — and some were tiny — less than a handful from Barbados and just three from Myanmar.

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Ukraine’s delegation got a loud cheer and some of the crowd stood to applaud them.

Flag bearers Steve Serio and Nicky Nieves led the U.S. team’s delegation. The French arrived last and to roars from the crowd, which then sang along to popular French songs, including “Que Je T’aime” by late rocker Johnny Hallyday.

Throughout the show, directed by Thomas Jolly who also led the Olympic opening ceremony, singers, dancers and musicians with and without disabilities performed on stage together seamlessly, projecting a theme of inclusion and overcoming physical differences. Lucky Love, a French singer who lost his left arm at birth, was joined by performers in wheelchairs. Other acts featured dancers with crutches.

International Paralympic Committee President Andrew Parsons said he hoped the Paris Paralympics would start an “inclusion revolution” beyond the field of sport.

“The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games will show what persons with disabilities can achieve at the highest level when the barriers to succeed are removed,” he said in a speech. “The fact these opportunities largely exist only in sport in the year 2024 is shocking. It is proof we can and must do more to advance disability inclusion — whether on the field of play, in the classroom, concert hall or in the boardroom.”

As the ceremony concluded, the Paralympic torch was carried into the area by former Olympic wheelchair tennis gold medalist Michaël Jérémiasz, who was surrounded on stage by dozens of torchbearers. Five French Paralympians lit the Olympic cauldron, which is designed to look like a hot air balloon and glowed gold-like in the night.

The Paralympic flag was raised high into the night sky and its emblem adorned the top of the Arc de Triomphe about 3 kilometers (2 miles) away.

Although Wednesday night’s show started at 8 p.m. local time, fans had gathered hours earlier under a scorching sun to get top spots along the way. As performers entertained the crowd on stage, volunteers danced alongside Paralympians as they waved their national flags and the sky gave off a postcard-perfect orange glow.

Tony Estanguet, the president of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, called Paralympians “immense champions who we have the honor of being with tonight.”

The first medals handed out on Thursday will be in taekwondo, table tennis, swimming and track cycling. Athletes are grouped by impairment levels to ensure as level a playing field as possible.

The closing ceremony will be held at Stade de France, the national stadium.

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Associated Press Writer Tom Nouvian in Paris contributed to this report.

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AP Paralympics: https://apnews.com/hub/paralympic-games

Olympic Hightlights

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FILE - South Africa’s Jacques Freitag competes in the men’s high jump of the 2004 Olympic Games, in the Olympic Stadium in Athens, Friday Aug. 20, 2004. Local media is reporting that South African police have discovered the body of former high jump world champion Jacques Freitag after he went missing last month. The reports said the 42-year-old, who won the 2003 world title in Paris and competed at the 2004 Olympics, had been shot. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

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FILE - Ilona Maher of USA is tackled by Sharni Williams of Australia in a semifinal of the Rugby World Cup 7’s championship held in Cape Town, South Africa, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. The main task for Maher, the breakout social media star on TikTok at the Tokyo Olympics, is winning a medal in Paris. (AP Photo/Halden Krog, File)

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FILE - Jacques Freitag of South Africa waves his national flag after he won the Men’s high jump event at the World Athletics Championships, at the Stade de France in Saint Denis, north of Paris, Monday, Aug. 25, 2003. Local media is reporting that South African police have discovered the body of former high jump world champion Jacques Freitag after he went missing last month. The reports said the 42-year-old, who won the 2003 world title in Paris and competed at the 2004 Olympics, had been shot. (AP Photo/Thomas Kienzle, File)

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Sammy Sullivan of USA in action during HSBC rugby sevens series in Singapore, on May 4, 2024. The anthem played as Army officer Sammy Sullivan stood to attention and saluted beside her U.S. rugby teammates before a gold-medal game in Hong Kong against Olympic champion New Zealand. No prizes for guessing where her mind may have drifted to: Paris in July. (AP Photo/Suhaimi Abdullah)

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USA Water Polo Women’s Senior National Team attacker Ryann Neushul, left, trains at Long Beach City College Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024, in Long Beach, Calif. Following in the footsteps of two older sisters who won gold with the U.S. women’s water polo team, Ryann Neushul is making her Olympic debut in Paris this summer. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

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Iranian wrestler Iman Mahdavi, 28, practices at the Lotta Club Seggiano gym, in Pioltello , northern Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

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FILE - Steven van de Velde of the Netherlands competes during the CEV Beach Volley Nations Cup Vienna 2022 men’s semifinal game against Austria at the Red Bull Beach Arena in Vienna, Austria, Sunday, Aug. 7, 2022. Van de Velde, convicted and imprisoned eight years ago for raping an underage girl in England has qualified for the Paris Olympics. (AP Photo/Florian Schroetter, File)