Just weeks after hosting the Olympics, the summer of sport in Paris has begun its final chapter with the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games.

More than 4000 athletes with physical, visual and intellectual impairments will compete in 22 sports over the next 11 days – including 160 athletes from Australia.

Once again the groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday morning (AEST) was held outside a stadium and under blue skies.

But unlike the Olympic opening ceremony, which featured a boat parade on the Seine River, the Paralympic ceremony was exclusively on land.

Some 50,000 spectators enjoyed the show as athletes paraded down the famous Champs-Elysées to the ceremony at the Place de la Concorde.

Athletes parade on the Champs-Elysees in front of the Arc de Triomphe. Photo: Getty

Australia’s contingent was led by wheelchair racer Madison de Rozario and swimmer Brenden Hall.

The green-and gold team will hope to make and break history after  Australia’s unprecedented success at the Olympic Games.

De Rozario will race in the women’s 1500-metre and 500-metre T54, as well as the women’s marathon.

She holds the world record in the women’s 800-metre T53 and boasts first-place finishes in the New York and London marathons.

Throughout her career, the Perth native has advocated for people with disabilities. She has taken countless honours, including the Cosmopolitan Sportswoman of the Year in 2018 and Paralympics Australia Athlete of the Year in 2020.

Australia’s flag bearers Brenden Hall and Madison de Rozario. Photo: Paris Olympics

Hall made his Olympic debut in 2008 and has since amassed six Paralympic medals, including two golds in the 400-metre freestyle S9, as well as another in the 4×100-metre freestyle.

Now an eight-time world champion, Hall’s life was turned upside-down when he lost much of his hearing and his right leg to chicken pox in 1999.

But through the past 2½ decades, the now 31-year-old has become a world-record holder, 19-time World and Paralympic medallist, a husband and a father.

Hall plans to dominate the 400-metre freestyle, 100-metre backstroke and 100-metre butterfly S9 in Paris as “one last crack” before retiring with presumably an even-more stacked trophy cabinet.

Opening ceremony artistic director Thomas Jolly said the event showcased “the Paralympic athletes and the values that they embody”.

Organisers say more than two million tickets have been sold for the Paris Paralympics.

Competition begins Thursday (Paris time) with the first medals handed out in taekwondo, table tennis and track cycling.

Athletes are grouped by impairment levels to ensure as level a playing field as possible. Only two sports on the program, goalball and boccia, don’t have an Olympic equivalent.

Lucky Love performs during the opening ceremony. Photo: Getty

International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons said the big crowds expected in Paris would mean a lot to athletes, many of whom competed in front of empty stands at the Tokyo Paralympics three years ago due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“As our ambition is to be perceived and understood as the most transformational sport event on the planet, by having this atmosphere, it’s important,” he told The Associated Press on the eve of the opening ceremony.