All to know about the Paralympic Games Paris 2024

Less than two weeks after the curtain fell on the Olympic Games, Paris is set to light up again for another mega sporting event.
The Paralympic Games 2024 will be held in the French capital from Wednesday and will see thousands of athletes compete for coveted medals.
Here is what you need to know about the games in Paris:
The Paralympics will be held from Wednesday, August 28 to Sunday, September 8.
A glittering opening ceremony, beginning at 8pm local time (18:00 GMT) will kick off the games on Wednesday. It will be the first ever Paralympic opening ceremony to be held outside a stadium, similar to the opening of the Olympic Games about a month ago.
Athletes will parade through Paris’s landmark Avenue des Champs-Elysees to the Place de la Concorde public square in front of an expected 65,000 people.

The 18 venues across Paris and its outskirts that will play host to games are:
Take a look at Al Jazeera’s guide to the Olympic venues.
More than 150 countries will be represented in Paris.
China, Great Britain (GB) and the United States (USA) will field some of the largest contingents with more than 200 athletes each, while dozens of countries will be represented by a single athlete each.
More than 4,400 athletes are gathering in Paris for the games.
Athletes will compete in 549 medal events spread across 22 sports, which are:
Only two Paralympic sports – goalball and boccia – do not have an Olympic equivalent.
Goalball is played on an indoor court the size of a volleyball court, with goals on each end. Teams of visually impaired or blind players (wearing eyeshades to ensure fairness) take turns rolling a ball containing bells towards the opposing side’s goal. The defending team’s players act as goalkeepers.
In boccia, players throw or roll leather balls as close as they can to a small ball called a jack.
To compete at the Paralympics, athletes must have “an underlying health condition that leads to a permanent eligible impairment,” according to the International Paralympic Committee.
Impairments can be caused by either cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, amputations, physical injuries or intellectual impairment, blindness or reduced sight.
To ensure fair competition between Paralympians, athletes are grouped by how limited they are by their impairment or how much of an effect it has on their ability to compete in their chosen sport.
Al Jazeera will report the major results and talking points from the games.
The games can be followed on the Paralympic YouTube channel as well as on regional broadcasters listed here.
Tickets for the games can be bought from the Paris 2024 ticket site.