.jpg "Yusif Amady, proudly carries Ghana’s flag as the flagbearer during the flag parade at the closing ceremony")
Thanks, goodbye Rio - Paralympics end with ‘One love, One heart’
The Rio 2016 Paralympic Games were brought to a close inside a packed Maracana Stadium on last Sunday night.
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Singers, dancers and fireworks lit up the iconic stadium before tributes were paid to Iranian cyclist Bahman Golbarnezhad with a minute’s silence in his honour following his tragic death last Saturday.
Both athletes and organisers had reason to celebrate as the Games defied expectations in more ways than one.
At one point, the XV Paralympics were not even going to have a closing ceremony.
Such were the swingeing cuts necessary after Paralympic funds were used as contingency for the Olympics that the Rio 2016 Organising Committee considered not having a final extravaganza for the Paralympics.
Fortunately they were persuaded otherwise. Fortunately Brazil belatedly backed a Games which a month earlier had been mired in the worst build-up in the Paralympics' 56-year history.
The Games — and perceptions of what is possible — were transformed. For 11 days spirits were raised in a nation mired in economic and political turmoil.
Bob Marley’s lyrics rang around the Maracana — ‘One love, one heart, let's get together and feel all right’ — and an athlete conga of nations danced through the aisles.
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike then received the Paralympic flag from the President of the International Paralympic Committee Sir Philip Craven (C) to signal Tokyo’s turn for the next Games in 2020.
Tokyo 2020 is expected to be the most unified of Olympics and Paralympics yet. It is host of the Paralympics for a second time.
There are 1,437 days to go. Now it is the turn of the Land of the Rising Sun to shine a new light on the world.