IRELANDS’s para dressage team took part in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games in the French capital city on Wednesday night.

Athletes Michael Murphy, Kate Kerr Horan, Jessica McKenna, Sarah Slattery and high performance director Debora Pijpers were among the Irish delegation who travelled up the Champs-Élysées before entering the Place de la Concorde, the largest square in Paris which was transformed for the night into an open-air theatre.

The spectacular event was the first time the opening ceremony of a Paralympic Games was brought outside a traditional stadium setting, similar to the Olympic Games four weeks ago when the delegations travelled down the Seine river.

The flag bearers were T13 100m athlete Orla Comerford and table tennis player Colin Judge.

International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons called for freedom, inclusion and equality in his speech at the opening ceremony.

“At a time of growing global conflict, increasing hate, and rising exclusion, let sport be the social glue that brings us together,” he said. “Here at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, we will celebrate what makes us different, show there is strength in difference, beauty in difference, and that difference serves as a powerful force for good.”

The para dressage competition begins on Tuesday, September 3rd, with the Grade I, II and III individual competitions, followed by Grade V, IV on Wednesday.

The team competition takes place next Friday, followed by the Freestyle on Saturday, September 7th. The competition takes place in Versailles. See page 83 for a preview.

Belfast-based Austen Burns (33) will line out for Canada in Grade I. Burns, who runs his own business PersonalCarer in Northern Ireland, was born in Langley, Canada, and his family relocated to Northern Ireland in 1997.

Irish para archer Kerrie Leonard, a keen equine photographer who has often featured in Irish Horse World, did not progress to the last 16 of the W2 individual compound open at Paris 2024 after a loss to China’s Jiamin Zhou in Friday’s elimination round.