The Queen declared the Paralympics officially open during Wednesday’s spectacular opening ceremony, watched by some 80,000 spectators.

About 4,200 athletes from 164 countries, including 300 from the home nation, will compete in 21 sports across the next 11 days.

The Cyprus Paralympic squad was led by the flag bearer swimmer Karolina Pelentridou with the other two athletes Antoni Aresti and Evripides Georgiou.