Paris 2024 500 days to go in numbers, milestones, and French icons

What's in a number? 

As we mark 500 days to go until the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, we took this opportunity to look at the other numbers behind the world's third largest sporting event.

Here we have athletes and venues, certainly, but also some numbers we bet you didn't know about the host city welcoming its first ever Summer Paralympics. Join us in discovering the Paris 2024 numbers, and remember that with every second, we are getting closer to lighting that Paralympic cauldron!

4,400 – The maximum number of athletes that will compete at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. Additionally, there will be 278 guides who compete alongside athletes with vision impairments.

2024 – Next year will be a big one! This is when the French capital hosts the Games.

1838– Souriez! The first ever photograph of a human was taken 185 years ago. Louis Daguerre made the historic snap on the Boulevard du Temple in central Paris. Countless photographs have been taken since. How many more will be added at Paris 2024?

1676– The historic complex known as Les Invalides was completed this year. Made up of numerous museums and monuments, this venue will host the Para archery competition during the 2024 Paralympic Games. It is one of the oldest venues to be used during the Games, along with the Grand Palais, set to host wheelchair fencing and Para taekwondo, and the regal Chateau de Versailles, which will be the venue for Para equestrian events.

1345– The year when the Notre-Dame Cathedral was completed. It is considered point zero of Paris, which means all distances in the city are measured from it.

1,093- Medals that France won at the Summer Paralympics since taking part in the first edition of the Games in 1960.

987– Paris was not always the capital of France. This was the year when it got the coveted status. Home to more than 2 million residents, Paris is also the largest city in the country and one of the oldest cities in Europe.

549- Medal events at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, including a record 236 medal events for women.

330- The height of the Eiffel Tower in meters. This iconic landmark will cast a hefty shadow over the blind football competition, to be staged in the park at the foot of the tower.

300– Hours of live broadcasts, which marks a new milestone in terms of Paralympic coverage. Paris 2024 will be the first time that all Para sports are filmed and broadcast live. Time to start making plans for the most epic watch parties!

184– National Paralympic Committees will be represented at the Games.

130– Museums in Paris. Figuring out what to do between the morning Para athletics heats and the finals in the evening? Got a short break between wheelchair rugby action? Leave Catherine Debrunner and Ryley Blatt to prepare for their next athletic feats without curious eyewitnesses and hang out with the Mona Lisa and at the Bal du Moulin de la Galette instead.  

128– Dancers in the handover video by Paris 2024. The video of dancers with different abilities moving in perfect unison under the direction of well-known French choreographer Sadeck Waff was shown at the Tokyo 2020 Closing Ceremony to celebrate the next host of the Paralympic Games. If you missed it the first time, check it out here (as we have done countless times).

42– Kilometres, length of the Marathon Pour Tous route. Ordinary Parisians and city guests will have an opportunity to complete the marathon course of the 2024 Paralympic Games, either as the full 42km distance or the shortened 10km. This will be the first time when an Olympics and Paralympics marathon route is open to the public, so get your race gear on and start training.

38– Million tourists visited Paris in 2019, the last reference year before the Covid-19 pandemic. The city is one of the world’s most popular tourism destinations and given the variety of things to do there, it is easy to guess why.

35 – Bridges across the Seine in Paris, including the famous Pont Alexandre III, Pont Neuf and Pont des Arts. Which one would you choose for a romantic rendez-vous?

28– Mark your calendars for 28 August 2024. This is the date of the Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony. And the number 28 has even more significance for the Paralympic Movement. It was on 28 July 1948 when the first Stoke Mandeville Games were held under the leadership of pioneering neurologist Sir Ludwig Guttman, marking the birth of the Paralympic Games.

22- Sports will be contested at the 2024 Paralympic Games. To compare, the ninth International Stoke Mandeville Games, which took place in Rome in 1960 and are considered the first Paralympic Games, had athletes taking part in eight sports. It was not until 2016, at the Games in Rio de Janeiro, that the Paralympic programme expanded to 22 sports for the first time.

20 – Competition venues. Indoor or outdoor, modern or historic – the arenas where athletes will battle it out for medals are sure to dazzle spectators and leave lasting memories of one of the world’s most beautiful cities.

15 – Kilograms minimum is how much an athlete's wheelchair weighed during the early editions of the Paralympic Games. There were no specialised sports wheelchairs until the early 1980s, so athletes first raced in chairs they also used for everyday activities. Present-day race wheelchairs are made of aluminium, have carbon wheels, and weight around 7 kilograms.

12 – Days packed with sports, celebrations and artistic performances! Expect to be amazed as the Paralympic Games take over the French capital for almost two weeks in the summer of 2024.

11 – Gold medals French athletes won at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, their biggest haul since Beijing 2008. Can they surpass that number on home turf?

3.4 – Million spectators are expected at the 2024 Paralympic Games, which would break the record for ticket sales. London 2012 holds the standing record with 2.7 million tickets sold.

3 - Symbols featured in the Paris 2024 emblem, which is shared by the Paralympic and Olympic Games for the first time in history. The symbol features a gold medal, a flame and Marianne – a representation of France as a nation.

2 – Kilometres is the length of the Champs-Elysees along the Opening Ceremony route, which stretches from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde.

1 – Paris 2024 is the first time that the French capital is hosting a Summer Paralympic Games. France has hosted a Winter Games before, in Tignes and Albertville in 1992, as well as two editions of the Summer Olympics, but next year's Games will mark the first time that the country is hosting a summer edition of the Paralympics.