Paralympics: Female athletes light a flame of hope, firing up the art of the possible

It seems fitting that Team Ireland’s last three athletes in action at the 2024 Paralympic Games today are Richael Timothy, Mary Fitzgerald and Britney Arendse.
For these have been a Games where Ireland’s female Paralympians led the charge in terms of medals.
All six of Ireland’s podium finishes in Paris so far were achieved by women, all of whom have a vision impairment.
It is certainly no precedent for there to be more Irish female medal winners than male – it was also the case in Rio 2016 and Tokyo last time out – but this will be the first time since the inaugural Paralympic Games in 1960 that no Irish men medalled.
Measured in the currency of gold, silver and bronze, these were the Games of Katie-George Dunlevy (one gold, two silver), Róisin Ní Riain (one silver, one bronze) and Orla Comerford (one bronze).
But they were also the Games of Dearbhaile Brady (17), Shauna Bocquet (20) and Deaten Registe (20) too – three Paralympic newcomers who qualified for finals in their maiden Paralympics.
And they were also the Games where Ellen Keane, Eve McCrystal and Ronan Grimes bid farewell. As some folk arrive, there are always others preparing to leave.
They were the Games of fourth-place finishes for Ireland – Keane, Greta Streimikyte, McCrystal and Josephine Healion, Ní Riain twice.
They were the Games where Irish twins Chloe and Judith MacCombe competed in the same event, and at the end of a gruelling triathlon, just two places and a gap of only 45 seconds separated the sisters.
But of course it’s not what these Paralympic Games were that ultimately matters, rather, it is the flame of hope for the future they ignited within homes right across the world for people with an impairment.
The performances, more than the victories and losses, of more than 4,400 elite Para athletes over the last fortnight highlighted not what is impossible, but what is possible.
On Wednesday afternoon, while talking with members of the Irish media just moments after winning gold, Dunlevy took a brief pause mid-answer.
“I’ve got a message,” she said. “I said to the gang in Paralympics Ireland, all of the medallists from Ireland are women, and we’re all visually impaired women.
“For any young children at home with a vision impairment, if they’ve seen any of our races, hopefully we can inspire them to believe in themselves and to dream big. Hopefully we’re inspiring the next generation in whatever they do, sport or anything else.”
Paris was Dunlevy’s fourth Paralympic Games, and few understand the impact Para athletes can have on kids more than the 42-year-old cyclist. She has lived it.
“Even my younger self, I didn’t have anybody to look up to, any idols, so if it just inspires any child with vision impairment to just believe in themselves, then that’s my job done,” she added on Friday after claiming silver in the road race.
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It is fair to say it has been a good summer for Paris – both the Olympic and Paralympic Games have been a success. The strategy of repurposing venues and incorporating iconic landmarks as part of the show was an unqualified triumph. No white-elephant stadiums were hurt in the making of these Games.
The La Défense Arena, which is normally home to the Racing 92 rugby team, was reimagined as a swimming venue.
The Paralympic opening ceremony took place at the Place de la Concorde. Athletes emerged from the Champs-Élysées and paraded through the largest square in Paris, which had been transformed into an open-air amphitheatre.
The Grand Palais hosted wheelchair fencing and taekwondo, Château de Versailles was home to equestrian, wheelchair tennis took place in Roland-Garros, the Para triathlon started and finished on the stunning Pont Alexandre III.
The Games truly took place in the heart of the city.
A temporary, 12,860-capacity stadium was installed at the base of the Eiffel Tower. Boasting one of the most stunning backdrops of a venue anywhere on the planet, it hosted beach volleyball during the Olympics and blind football during the Paralympics. If Instagram did stadiums!
The organisers put on quite the show, but the 45,000 volunteers were the day-to-day stars. They were hailed as the “hidden heroes”. Heroes, no question, but hidden they certainly were not. It was impossible to move around the city without spotting the volunteers in their bright uniform of bottle green, lime and blush pink.
They were omnipresent, helpful, cheerful, positive, joyful. It was inconceivable to be grouchy in their airspace. If the organisers created the physical structures, then the volunteers created the mood of the city – they gave these Games real energy, real soul.
Unless there is further success today, Team Ireland will return to Dublin on Monday with six medals. It would be the lowest medal haul since Beijing in 2008 (five), but just one shy of the seven garnered in Tokyo.
Prior to Paris, the chief executive of Paralympics Ireland, Stephen McNamara, expressed a hope for between eight to 10 medals. By that metric, Ireland came in below expectations.
But there were significant positives to take from these Games – not least the career-defining form of Ní Riain and Comerford.
Ní Riain, at the age of just 19, swam in four events, qualified for four finals and won two medals.
At the age of 26, and having appeared at two previous Paralympics, Comerford truly arrived in Paris as a world-class athlete.
There are similarities between Ní Riain and Comerford, most strikingly their unflinching determination and belief they can and will be better, stronger, faster. That ambition fuels them.
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The LA cycle begins in earnest now, the wheel keeps turning. There are people who watched these Paris Games unfold and have been inspired to research what Para sports options might be available to them.
How do you measure success? How do you measure achievement? What do you remember from these Paralympic Games?
Right now, sitting in a hotel room on the edge of the city centre, certain images spring to mind – Lu Dong and Guo Jincheng, neither of whom have arms, cutting through the water in the swimming pool like torpedoes; several triathletes getting lifted out of the Seine after a 750-metre swim and carried to their prosthetics, which they immediately fit before hopping on a bike for a 20km cycle and a 5km run; blind football under the Eiffel Tower as France played Colombia – the fans in the stand all singing “Allez les Bleus” but falling silent at kick-off as the players use the sound of a bell in the ball to figure out where it is, the ability of those players to dribble, shoot, their acceptance that getting mowed down is just part of the gig, and always having a willingness to immediately spring back up and go again. Football, reimagined.
Perhaps it was best summed up by Orla Comerford’s mam, Siobhan. Speaking outside the Stade de France after watching her daughter win bronze, she said of the Paralympics:
“This is a wonderful showcase of ability, not disability.”
The 2024 Paralympic Games end tomorrow.
But their legacy will outlast us all.