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On Saturday, four days before the Paris Paralympic Games open, the Paralympic torch will be lit next to the English hospital where the idea for the competition was born. The Paralympic movement began in 1948 when German neurologist Ludwig Guttmann organised sporting events for wounded veterans at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, northwest of London. The Stoke Mandeville Games were held alongside the 1948 London Olympics in the field next to the hospital, which was later developed into the stadium where Saturday’s ceremony will take place.
The first Paralympic Games were held in Rome in 1960, attracting 400 athletes from 23 countries.
The torch lighting ceremony will take place on Saturday afternoon and will be attended by Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organising committee, and Andrew Parsons, president of the International Paralympic Committee.
It will be the first time since the 2012 London Olympics that the Paralympic torch will be lit at its home in Stoke Mandeville.
Two British Paralympians, Helen Rainsford and Gregor Ewan, will light the famous torch.
Rainsford was the first Paralympic champion in para-rowing when the sport made its debut in Beijing in 2008. Ewan has competed three times in wheelchair curling at the Winter Games.
On Sunday the torch will pass through the Channel Tunnel, where 24 British torchbearers will carry it half the distance, before handing it over to 24 French torchbearers who will take it to Calais.
After this, 12 torches will travel across France from Sunday to Wednesday. After this the torch will reach Paris and the Olympic cauldron located in the Tuileries Garden.
One thousand torchbearers will perform this task in turn in approximately 50 cities.
The main torch, coming from Stoke Mandeville, will pass through Calais, Arras, Amiens, Louviers and Chambly before reaching the Paris region.
The Paralympic Games, which are being held in France for the first time, will begin on August 28 with an opening ceremony between the Champs-Elysees and Place de la Concorde, conducted by artistic director Thomas Jolly, as was done in the ceremonies that marked the start of the Olympic Games in July.
Nearly 2.5 million tickets are on sale for the event. As of Wednesday, about 1.75 million tickets had been sold, and tickets for about a dozen games were nearly sold out, according to organizers.
Around 4,400 athletes will compete in 549 events, held at 18 competition venues, 16 of which will be the same as those at the Olympics.
These include the Grand Palace, the Chateau de Versailles, and the Stade de France.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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