LONDON — Partially paralyzed marathon participant Claire Lomas lit the Paralympic cauldron in central London Friday, one of a slew of events meant to mark the coming of the Paralympic Games across the British capital. Prime Minister David Cameron addressed the crowd gathered at London's Trafalgar Square just before the cauldron was ignited, saying that the Olympic Games had made his country proud, but that “these Paralympic Games will make our country prouder still.” “We are going to show the whole world that when it comes to putting on a show, there is no country like Britain and no city like London,” he said. The Paralympics — a competition for disabled athletes — have traditionally garnered far less attention than the Olympic Games, which attract hundreds of millions of spectators and sports enthusiasts from across the globe. Still the event's profile is rising, and organizers say that more than 2.3 million of 2.5 million tickets for the Games have already been sold. Three other Paralympic flames have been struck at other locations in Britain and Northern Ireland, and are due to be united next Tuesday at the southern England village of Stoke Mandeville before being carried 150 kilometers by 580 torchbearers to the Olympic Stadium in east London, where it will be used to light the cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Games on the evening of Aug. 29. Lomas, who uses a bionic suit to move around after being paralyzed from the chest down following a horse-riding accident in 2007, said the experience of lighting the cauldron was “actually quite nerve-wracking.” Meanwhile, at London's Tower Bridge, the Paralympic symbol, the Agitos, was moved in to replace the Olympic rings. — AP
