French fans during the men’s singles SH6 gold-medal match of para badminton between Charles Noakes of France and GB’s Krysten Coombs. Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock
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French fans during the men’s singles SH6 gold-medal match of para badminton between Charles Noakes of France and GB’s Krysten Coombs. Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock
Paris Paralympic Games 2024
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Crowds at Paralympics have delivered but para-sport needs to be seen all the time
Ade Adepitan
Fans in Paris have embraced it but this showcase will not mean anything unless we bring sport along after the Games
Tue 3 Sep 2024 13.07 EDTLast modified on Tue 3 Sep 2024 16.19 EDT
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Ahead of these Games, one of the things we were all worried about was whether they’d have the crowds. Whether Paris could deliver that same energy and enthusiasm we remember from London. I think we now know the answer. On Monday I was at the SH6 para-badminton final between Krysten Coombs and Charles Noakes, and it was like: wow. There were 7,000 people there, they were raising the roof, they were singing the Marseillaise, they were on their feet waving flags when their guy came in, they had giant pictures of his head.
I have to say, I really felt sorry for [...]