Paralympics 2024 | “Good recovery”: DBS draws preliminary conclusion

The German Disabled Sports Association has drawn a generally positive conclusion ahead of the final stretch of the Paralympic Games in Paris.

The team “caught up well in the second half of the games, we are doing well with the sporting results. We won medals in eleven sports, that’s three more than in Tokyo,” said Chef de Mission Karl Quade at the final press conference: “I always said tenth place plus or minus. Our first priority was to stop the trend.

The negative trend with the historic negative result in Tokyo has been halted for the time being. The German team is currently just outside the top ten in the medal table with nine gold medals.

The contradiction was “stopped in terms of team size, the total number of medals and the so-called final places four to eight,” Quade emphasised. Even in terms of gold medals alone, we are “roughly where we imagined it would be.”

The Paralympics team naturally wants to “move forward even further in the future, and we will also write that into the competitive sports reform. But first we have to find our way again,” explained Quade: “We will not sit back because the trend has stopped.” We will look to see where we can still improve. In Tokyo, the German team finished twelfth in the medal table with 13 gold, 12 silver and 18 bronze medals.

The result should be similar this time after the competitions have concluded. “We are very pleased with the sport of swimming, that is the strongest part of the team. If you look at the number of athletes, the shooters are even stronger,” emphasised Quade. With the exception of Germany’s other flagship sports, athletics and cycling, “all sports performed better than in Tokyo”.

He could not understand the doom-mongering that some experts were making about Los Angeles. “I don’t know what crystal ball they’re looking into,” said Quade. There will be a “turning point.”

“Sure, not everyone who was here will continue. But I’m not going to make any predictions about Los Angeles yet.” There are “good young talents at home.” “It’s now a matter of not letting the association “break down” in the cycle between games,” said DBS President Friedhelm Julius Beucher.