For a little less than two weeks, the sport world will still revolve and shine around Japan.
The Paralympic Games open this Tuesday in Tokyo until September 5.
But once again, the fifth wave of coronavirus in the country spoils the party, as evidenced by the empty stands of the national stadium during the opening ceremony at 8 p.m. (1 p.m. in Paris).
The archipelago has recorded more than 25,000 daily positive cases in recent days, pushing hospitals to the breaking point, according to local doctors.
This degradation got the better of the bleachers, decreed empty in the wake of the Olympics struck behind closed doors for 98% of the events.
Sandrine Martinet flag bearer
For the 4,400 athletes competing, there will therefore be no public, but their objective is elsewhere: to win one of the 539 titles, against 339 during the Olympics.
“Of course we would prefer there to be an audience, but we stay focused on our goal.
We spent five years this time training to reach the Grail, ”summarizes the judokate and French flag bearer Sandrine Martinet.
In the national stadium in Tokyo, during the opening ceremony, she will pave the way for the French delegation, one of the 162 competing delegations, including five new ones, but not Afghanistan due to the situation in the country.
Proof that the Covid-19 has not dried up the growing enthusiasm of edition after edition for the Paralympic Games, since Tokyo, the first city to host the event a second time (after 1964), will be close to the record for delegations of London (164).
"An event that will change the world"
Failing to feel it in the megalopolis which is about to enter its eighth week of state of emergency, the fever is palpable in athletes.
"I am even more impatient because of the postponement of a year, proclaims the American archer Matt Stutzman.
"I'm so happy to be here," added Italian fencer Beatrice Vio next to him.
For lack of spectators, the joy and the stakes of the competition will have to be transmitted only by television broadcasting and its audience of four billion cumulative viewers expected by the International Paralympic Committee (ICC).
"I think the Japanese people will be proud", wants to believe the president of the CPI Andrew Parsons.
"She is organizing an event that will change the world" and will see "the same positive wave" that has risen in public opinion with the Olympic Games.
Represented by a delegation of an unprecedented number of 254 para-athletes, will the host country continue the momentum of the Olympic Games crowned with a record of 27 gold medals?
Will China keep its stranglehold on the top of the medal table as at every Olympiad since 2004?
So many questions that promise to bring back to the center of attention, from Wednesday and the start of competitions, the medal table, rather than that of contaminations.
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