Paris 2024 eyes sell-out crowds to beat London record - IPC

The Paris 2024 Paralympics aim to sell every one of the 2.8 million tickets before the global event gets under way to top the record figures set in London in 2012, International Paralympic Committee President Andrew Parsons said.

    Tickets for the Paralympics, to be held between Aug. 28-Sept. 8, weeks after the Olympics in the French capital, go on sale on Oct. 9.

    "The ambition is to sell each and every ticket, 2.8 million, and then this will make Paris the number one in terms of ticket sales. London 2012 was 2.7 million," Parsons told Reuters in an interview exactly one year before the Games begin.

    "We want these Games to sell out even before the opening ceremony. So what we want is that we sell every ticket before the start of the Games," he said.

    Their strategy is affordable prices starting at 15 euros and a spectacular backdrop with iconic venues, such as Roland Garros for wheelchair tennis and the Eiffel Tower for five-a-side football.

    It will be the first Olympics and Paralympics to have spectators since the 2021 Tokyo summer Games and the Beijing 2022 winter edition were staged without fans due to COVID-19.

    "After two editions of the Games, spectators are back ... with incredible venues at the heart of the city," Parsons said.

    "We will have this combination of the tourists that already will be here, people coming for the Games and altogether creating this incredible environment."

    "There will also be a higher quality of athletes," Parsons said. "If you compare the athletes, the performances, generally across the 22 sports with the last time we had spectators, which is Rio 2016, as a product it is even better."

CHAMPS ELYSEES

What has not yet been decided is whether Russian and Belarusian