PARIS -- The 2024 Paralympics torch relay will start from Stoke Mandeville, Britain, where the event was first imagined by neurologist Ludwig Guttmann in 1948, organizers said Friday.
"We wanted it to kick off where the Paralympics were born," Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguet said at a news conference.
The torch will be carried by 24 British athletes. Midway through the Channel Tunnel, 24 French athletes will take over for the journey to Calais.
Eleven other flames will then be lit in France, and all will converge on Paris for the Aug. 28 Games opening ceremony.
German-born Guttmann became a British citizen in 1945 and organized the first Stoke Mandeville Games for disabled war veterans three years later. All participants in what Guttmann called the "Paraplegic Games" were suffering from spinal cord injuries and competed in wheelchairs.
The Paralympics will be held from Aug. 28 to Sept. 8 and begin with a ceremony at the Place de la Concorde after the athletes' procession on the Champs Elysees.