2024 marks the 17th Summer Paralympic Games which will take place from August 28 to September 8. All of the competing athletes representing Ireland deserve our support and pride. This list will get you started on what events to watch …
To see the full schedule click here.
Wednesday August 28
Opening Ceremony: The excitement starts tonight. All competing athletes in the Paralympics 2024, more than 4,400 from 154 countries, will parade along the Champs-Élysées to Place de la Concorde in the heart of Paris. The ceremony is running from 7pm to 10pm Irish time, so be sure to tune in. The 35 athletes representing Ireland will be competing across nine different sports, with all four provinces represented. Ireland has proudly competed at every Paralympic Games since the first Games took place in Rome in 1960. The opening ceremony will see three-time Paralympian Orla Comerford and two-time Paralympian Colin Judge lead the team out.
Thursday August 29
Para-swimming: At 9.43am Dearbhaile Brady and Nicole Turner are not to be missed in the S6 50m Freestyle heats. Turner is a silver medallist from Tokyo and this being her third games, she has the same intentions to win medals this year. She achieved a silver at the European Championships in April so it looks like she is on form to be on that podium.
At 10.11am Róisín Ní Riain will compete in the S13 100m butterfly heats. Ní Riain from Limerick swam six different events in Tokyo and made the final in five of them.
Para-cycling: At 11.55am see Richael Timothy compete in the C1-3 3,000m Individual Pursuit Qualifying and the final will take place that afternoon. Timothy played soccer for Ireland U15 and U17 but this changed when she suffered an acquired brain injury, caused by treatment for a rare condition and it left her with only 30 per cent power in her left leg. The 29-year-old is aiming for top six and is ready to do her home town of Ballymoe and her country proud.
At 12.41pm see Martin Gordon and Pilot, and Damien Vereker and Pilot will compete in the B4 4,000m Individual Pursuit Qualifying.
Para-archery: At 12pm Kerrie Leonard will compete in the W2 Individual Compound Opening Round.
Friday August 30
At 8.30am Ellen Keane is one to watch in the SB8 100m Breaststroke heats. This is the 29-year-old’s fifth and final Paralympics. Keane’s time is ranked fourth of the 15 swimmers she will be competing against so this is a very exciting year for her. We must remember – at just 13 years old, the Clontarf-native competed in the 2008 Beijing Games and placed sixth in the 100m Breaststroke. She has kept this winning momentum and we are excited to see her compete this year.
At 6.51pm Róisin Ní Riain will compete in the S13 100m Backstroke final and this is where she really wants to pick up medals. She is currently world champion of the breaststroke. This will be a gripping race.
Para-rowing: At 9.50am Katie O’Brien and Tiarnán O’Donnell will complete in the mixed PR2x heats and get their 2024 Paralympics underway.
Para-cycling: At 10.30am Ronan Grimes will compete in the C4-5 1,000 Time Trial qualifiers which will be a very exciting watch.
At 12.58pm Katie-George Dunlevy and Pilot, Josephine Healion and Pilot will compete in the B 1,000m Time Trial qualifiers. This is the first Paralympics for Healion, she is 29 years old from Tullamore and is vision-impaired. Linda Kelly will be her pilot for her races. The two won bronze together in the women’s tandem road race at the 2022 Para Cycling Road World Championships, so they are ready to go.
Sunday September 1
Triathlon: At 7.15am Cassie Cava will compete in the PTS4 final. Cassie Cava competed for Great Britain until 2017 when she switched to Ireland in 2018. She won the PTS4 category of WPS Edmonton. Cava went on to win bronze at the 2018 and 2019 World Triathlon Grand Finals. She is definitely one to watch this year.
Para-cycling: At 10.22am Katie-George Dunlevy and Pilot, Josephine Healion and Pilot will compete in the B 3,000m Individual Pursuit qualifiers. Katie-George Dunlevy and Pilot Eve McCrystal have been dominant in tandem para-cycling with their greatest success marked at the Rio Paralympic Games in 2016 as the pair claimed Paralympic medals in both the time trial for which they got gold and on the road race where they won silver. Their most recent achievement is a silver in the 2021 UCI Para Cycling Road World Championships Tandem Time Trial. We are very excited to see how these two get on.
Para-table tennis: At 5.30pm Colin Judge, a two-time Paralympian will compete in Class 3 Round of 32. Judge will be competing from September 1-5 so keep an eye on the schedule, he really is one not to miss. Judge won the Class 2 European title in 2017 but was reclassified to Class TT3 in May 2018 which significantly increased the numbers and standard of his competitors. In 2020 he won double gold (singles and team) at the Polish Open and double bronze (singles and team) at the Spanish Open. He qualified for Tokyo by winning a bronze medal at the World Qualifying Tournament in Slovenia in June 2021. Judge won bronze medals at the European Championships and the French Open in 2023. His form has continued into 2024 winning silver at the Czech Open. Next stop, Paris.
Tuesday September 3
Para-athletics: At 10am Orla Comerford will compete in the T13 100m heats. Comerford is Ireland’s great hope for a track medal. As per this season’s fastest times, she is the fastest in the field of 13. The 26-year-old has Stargardt’s disease, a degenerative condition that affects her central vision. Orla qualified an automatic slot for Paris 2024 with a fourth place finish at the 2023 Para Athletics World Championships in a final that saw Comerford in fourth place by only 0.06 of a second away from the podium. We have high hopes for Paris 2024.
Friday September 6
Para-athletics: At 9.43am a must-watch will be Aaron Shorten in the T20 1,500m final. This will be the 21-year-old’s first Paralympics but he is no stranger to victory. Shorten has an intellectual impairment and came through the Athletics Ireland Juvenile system to Senior, having won ten All Ireland National titles at Juvenile level. He made his International debut at the 2023 Para Athletics World Championships in Paris where he ran in the 1500m (his preferred event). Watch this space.
Saturday September 7
Para athletics: At 10.35am Mary Fitzgerald will compete in the F40 Shot Put final. The 24-year-old has achondroplasia and first encountered throwing through an induction day with the Irish Wheelchair Association Sport when she was eleven. Amongst many achievements, Tokyo was her first Paralympic Games. She finished seventh in the women’s Shot Put F40 with a best throw of 7.79. This year, in May, Fitzgerald smashed her personal best with a throw of 8.87m at the Paula Radcliffe Stadium in Loughborough. We can’t wait to watch her compete this year.
All of the athletes deserve our support and pride as they compete in the Paralympics 2024. See the full schedule here.
Follow the Paralympic Games on RTÉ/Sport, RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.