'I don't want London to be best Paralympics ever'

The Paralympic Agitos symbol by the Eiffel Tower

Baroness Grey-Thompson, who won 11 Paralympic gold medals for Great Britain and competed at every summer Games from 1988 to 2004, will be part of the Radio 5 Live team in Paris and is writing for BBC Sport during the Games.

As the Olympic flame was extinguished and that family looked forward to Los Angeles in 2028, it was an important moment as Tony Estanguet, the Paris 2024 president, announced that "the return match is now".

Along with having Paralympians in the final stages of the torch lighting at the Olympic closing ceremony, it laid down a decisive if subtle message that the ‘second half’ of the Games is coming.

The expectation on Paris as Paralympic hosts is high. London 2012 raised the Paralympic bar, and Paris will want to move it up another notch. It is time for that to happen. While I loved everything in London, I don’t want it to be the best Paralympics ever, just one of the best.

Since then, Rio 2016 faced huge financial challenges, putting the Games themselves in jeopardy, before a significant push to sell tickets saw venues filled for what was dubbed the ‘People’s Games’.

Tokyo should have been different, but Covid meant a year’s delay and when the Games were staged, nobody was able to watch in person, apart from a smattering of team-mates and volunteers.

We are here now in the French capital with glorious venues, fantastic competition, the promise of a bold opening ceremony with athletes at its heart, and hopefully some good weather too. I am excited by the prospect of the next two weeks.

The vibe in the city during the Olympics was great. The fan zones were welcoming and accessible.

Paris does not have to worry about its tourist industry but there has been a change in terms of an understanding of the lack of access.

Going out for dinner one night I was met at the door of the restaurant by a waiter who told me they didn’t have an accessible toilet. I didn’t think they would but this is a big step in moving forward.

Organisers say 1.75 million tickets have been sold, 700,000 of them coming from the start of the Olympics. That push around ticket sales will continue with the hope that Parisiens coming back from their traditional French holidays - ‘Les Vacances’ - will get involved.

The International Paralympic Committee has promised that the summer’s sporting party isn’t over and the biggest one is yet to come with people having the time of their lives, which I am sure they will.

An 80,000-seater venue like the Stade de France, which will host the athletics, will not be easy to fill, but other sports like wheelchair fencing and Para-taekwondo, which will take place at the Grand Palais, the Para-cycling track events, the Para-equestrian programme and blind football at the Eiffel Tower Stadium are close to selling out.

This is an important time for the Paralympic movement. This Games will have more women than ever before, more media coverage and if they don’t grab this moment, it will be a lost opportunity.

The coverage in the UK will be wall-to-wall and it will be the closest our athletes are going to get to a home summer games for a long time. It will make it easier for friends, family and fans, who could not travel to Tokyo, to be part of the Games and will mean that the audience can see events in real time as opposed to highlights.

Tara Davis-Woodhall and husband Hunter Woodhall celebrate her Olympic gold

I am also excited to see how the United States are taking coverage of the Games to a whole new level before LA 2028.

Historically, the Paralympic movement in the US has been a poor relation to the Olympics and frequently confused with the Special Olympics, but now it has been elevated and their athletes will want to make a big statement before their home Games in 2028.

We could also see truly global superstars coming out of these Games. Olympic long jump champion Tara Davis-Woodhall is married to amputee sprinter Hunter Woodhall. They are a real sporting power couple and what better way to highlight the linking of the two Games?

ParalympicsGB will have a team of 215 athletes in action with the medal target set by UK Sport of 100-140.

In Tokyo the British team finished second behind China with 124 medals, including 41 golds. But I think the USA will be pushing hard to take that second place from GB. France will also want to impress and Australia are always a threat.

After the Games is time for a wider debate on where we need to sit in the medal table. We are a small country, albeit with a lot of talented athletes, but we have no control over what any other country does.

The list of where we expect the golds to come from is long, but what I hope to see is a breadth of medals across all sports, similar to what was achieved in Tokyo.

Some of the most amazing and unexpected moments in Japan were someone triumphing, not over adversity, but over sporting giants and those memories still live with me.

The Paralympic flame was lit at Stoke Mandeville, the birthplace of the Games, last weekend and is making its way through 50 cities in France.

The excitement and anticipation is growing. The British team and the athletes have put everything into this and I hope there will be some bold performances across the board.