John McFall, the Astronaut Flag Bearer at the Paris Paralympics, Is Ready to Fly

But on top of his sporting achievements, McFall—who has retired from athletics—today has the distinction of being the first para-astronaut to work with a space agency, the European Space Agency. And so at yesterday’s opening ceremony for the Paris Games, McFall was selected to represent not just one of the 168 participating delegations—in his case Great Britain and Northern Ireland—but the Paralympics as a whole.