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Paris gears up for 2024 by staging World Para Championships

Paris’ Charlety Stadium will host the World Para Athletics Championships in 2023 as the city builds towards the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The World Para Athletics Championships, to be held in the summer of 2023, is set to be the biggest Para sport event to take place in the French capital ahead of Paris 2024.

Charlety Stadium is a familiar venue to many of the world’s best Para athletes as it has hosted World Para Athletics Grand Prix since 2017.

IPC President Andrew Parsons said: “It is not common that the host city of the Paralympics also hosts such a major World Championships one year before the Games. I hope everyone is excited with the news as we are. The best athletes in the world will be inspiring and exciting Paris already in a great World Championships in 2023 and will return in 2024 for the Paralympic Games.”

Stade Charléty dates back to the 1930s and has a capacity of around 20,000. The stadium was scheduled to host the 2020 European Athletics Championships, but that event was cancelled because of the Covid pandemic.

Paris 2023 will be third edition of the World Championships to be held in France following Lille/Villeneuve d’Ascq 2002 and Lyon 2013. The last edition of the World Championships took place in Dubai in 2019 with more than 1,300 athletes from 92 nations.

Guislaine Westelynck, president of the French Handisport Federation, said: “I am confident thanks to our knowledge, after the successes of Villeneuve d’Ascq 2002, Lyon 2013, the World Para Athletics Grand Prix in Paris, and all the international competitions that we have already organised in other sports.”

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