PARALYMPICS 2024: Mpumelelo Mhlongo and Kat Swanepoel to lead Team SA in opening ceremony

JOHANNESBURG -  The 2024 Paris Paralympic Games are set to begin Wednesday, 28 August, and will run through Sunday, 8 September.

This is the first time in Paralympic history that the opening ceremony will take place outside of a stadium, and South Africans can watch it at 8pm here.

The ceremony will take place along the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Pari,s and will conclude at the Place de la Concorde. Paralympic athletes will parade along the route.

Team South Africa will be led by track athlete Mpumelelo Mhlongo, and swimmer Kat Swanepoel as the country’s flag bearers.

Mhlongo is a T44 world record holder in the 100m, 200m, and long jump, a Paralympic Games record holder, and the 2024 winner of Athletics South Africa’s Sportsman of the Year with a disability.

He won South Africa's first gold medal at the 2024 Para Athletics World Championships in Japan.

The 30-year-old dominated the T44 men's 100m race, coming first in a time of 11.34.

At the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships at the Charlety Stadium in Paris, Mhlongo also won SA's first gold medal in the T44 Men's 100m, in a time of 11.46.

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Swanepoel competes in the SM5 200m Individual Medley, S5 50m backstroke, 100m freestyle, 200m freestyle, SB4 100m breaststroke, and S14 400m freestyle.

She bagged the country’s first medal at the Manchester 2023 Allianz Para Swimming World Championships, and a silver medal in the women's 50m breaststroke SB3.

SB3 is for breaststroke swimmers with coordination affected to a low degree in the upper trunk and arms, with the rest of the trunk and legs highly affected, and those with an absence of limbs.

She has previously represented South Africa in both wheelchair rugby and wheelchair basketball. As a basketball player, she earned her South African colours, making it the first of the three sports she's participated in.

Athletes will be competing in 22 Paralympic sporting codes, and spread across 18 venues, with 549 gold medals up for grabs across the Games.