The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games take place from 28 August to 8 September.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) anticipates 4,400 athletes from 182 delegations to participate in the Games, where the IPC will host 549 medal events across 22 sports.
Team Ireland’s official sponsor is PTSB, and the bank has already announced its ambassadors in 2023. Four of the eleven ambassadors are para-athletes Nicole Turner, Jordan Lee, Britney Arendse, and Ronan Grimes.
Let’s look at Team Ireland’s participation in these prestigious games next:
Team Ireland’s Selected Paralympic Events for 2024
Team Ireland will participate in five of the 22 sports at the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games. Some athletes must still compete in their respective qualifiers to confirm their participation in the event. However, these are the sports and events with the achieved quotas for Team Ireland:
Para Athletics
The Paris 2024 Para-athletics features 164 medal events. Of the 1,069 expected athletes, two Irish female athletes will represent Ireland in the following two events:
Para-athletics events will take place from the 30th of August to the 8th of September.
Para Cycling
Ireland’s National Paralympic Committee (NPC) entered two para cyclists (representing men and women) into the 2024 Summer Paralympics based on their ranking in the 2022 Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) para-cycling ranking allocations.
More cycling slots will be allocated based on the 2024 UCI Para-cycling ranking, which closes on the 30th of June 2024. Irish paralympic gold medallists and tandem para-cyclists Eve McCrystal and Katie Dunlevy have partnered with two other women para-cyclists, hoping to earn two more berths for Paris by then. The new tandems are:
Equestrian
Ireland’s NPC has entered four para-equestrians to representIreland at the 2024 Summer Paralympics in Paris. Two female equestrians representing the country are Tamsin Addison on horses Jaguar and Lissau’s Decco, and Kate Kerr-Horan on Lykkebo’s Don Akino.
A favourite with sports betting fans, the para-equestrian events for Paris 2024 include para-dressage, with various individual championship tests ranging from Grade I to V. Each class’s top eight qualifying athletes may compete in the individual freestyle tests. Team Ireland’s four dressage competitors will compete in Individual Champion Test Grades I, III, IV, and V.
Para-dressage events will take place on the 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th of September.
Rowing
Irish rowers qualified for the 2024 Summer Paralympics at the 2023 World Rowing Championships held in Serbia. The para-rowers qualified for the PR2 mixed double sculls event, meaning two male and two female para-rowers will represent Ireland at Vaires‑sur‑Marne from 30 August to 1 September.
Swimming
Team Ireland consists of two swimmers who qualified convincingly at the Para Swimming World Championships in 2023. The first Irish para-swimmer to qualify for a slot at the Paris Paralympics was Róisín Ní Riain, while Ellen Keane secured a second spot at the Games.
The ladies will swim in the Women’s 100 m breaststroke (SB8) and Women’s 100 m butterfly (S13) events at the Paris La Défense Arena in Nanterre, which has been transformed into an Olympic swimming pool. The para-swimming events will occur between the 29th of August and the 7th of September.
Conclusion
Team Ireland looks set to represent Ireland in five sports and the applicable events at the Paris 2024 Paralympics. While some of the athletes are confirmed, we’ll know by mid-year all the athletes who qualify to partake in these prestigious games.
