Under sea and over land, the Paris Paralympics flame is lit before beginning an exceptional journey

Two weeks after French star swimmer Léon Marchand extinguished the Olympic flame to close the Paris Olympics, the spotlight is now on its Paralympic counterpart.

British Paralympians Helene Raynsford and Gregor Ewan on Saturday lit the flame in Stoke Mandeville, a village northwest of London widely considered the birthplace of the Paralympic Games.

The flame will now travel to France under the English Channel for a four-day relay from Atlantic Ocean shores to Mediterranean beaches, from mountains in the Pyrenees to the Alps.

Its journey will end in Paris on Wednesday during the Paralympics opening ceremony — with the lighting of a unique Olympic cauldron attached to a hot-air balloon that will fly over the French capital every evening during 11 days of competition.

The lighting ceremony of the Paralympic Heritage Flame was held in Buckinghamshire, where the Stoke Mandeville Games were first held in 1948 for a small group of wheelchair athletes who had sustained spinal injuries during World War II.

The man behind the idea was Ludwig Guttmann, a Jewish neurosurgeon who fled Nazi Germany and worked at Britain’s Stoke Mandeville hospital. At the time, suffering a spinal injury was considered a death sentence, and patients were discouraged from moving. Guttmann made the patients sit up and work muscles, and hit upon competition as way to keep them motivated.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I can feel his presence here today, no doubt about it,” said Andrew Parsons, the president of the International Paralympic Committee, at Saturday's lighting ceremony, referring to Guttmann.

The President of the Paris 2024 organizing committee Tony Estanguet said that two weeks after closing the Olympics, the French capital was “proud and excited” to host the 17th edition of the Summer Paralympics, the first ever for France.

We are "ready to make it unique and memorable for France and the whole world,” Estanguet said.

The Stoke Mandeville Games later grew into the first Paralympic Games, which took place in Rome in 1960. The Heritage Flame ceremony in Stoke Mandeville was first held ahead of the London Paralympics in 2012.

The flame will on Sunday cross the sea like its Olympic twin did when it arrived in France from Greece in May — but this time via the Channel Tunnel to mark the start of the Paralympic relay.

A group of 24 British athletes will embark on the underwater journey through the 50-kilometer long (30-mile) tunnel. Midway through, they will hand over the flame to 24 French athletes who will bring it ashore in Calais. It will be used to light 12 torches, symbolizing 11 days of competition and the opening ceremony.

Once on French soil, the flame’s 12 offshoots will head in different directions to kick off the Paris Olympics’ encore and aim to rekindle enthusiasm for the Games.

Among 1,000 torchbearers will be former Paralympians, young para athletes, volunteers from Paralympic federations, innovators of advanced technological support, people who dedicate their lives to others with impairments and people who work in the non-profit sector to support carers.

They will take the flame to 50 cities across the country to highlight communities that are committed to promoting inclusion in sport and building awareness of living with disabilities.

An exceptional flame will be lit in Paris on Sunday to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the French capital from Nazi Germany occupation during World War II.

The relay will highlight places that are committed to developing para sports, as well as places where famous Paralympians grew up, such as Lorient, home of double Paralympic sailing gold medalist Damien Seguin. It will also stop in Blois, which has a sports complex named after its Paralympic track athlete Marie-Amélie Le Fur who has nine medals, including two golds from Rio.

The relay will go through Châlons-en-Champagne, which has the only gymnasium in France designed to facilitate access to sport for people with intellectual disabilities. And Rouen, Chartres, and Troyes, which offer a range of disciplines, from sledge hockey to para tennis, para triathlon, adapted baseball and para climbing.

The flame will stop in Chambly, which, with its three sports facilities adapted for para sports, has served as a training camp location alongside Deauville and Antibes.

On Wednesday, the 12 flames will become one again when the relay ends in central Paris after visiting historical sites along the city's famed boulevards and plazas before lightening the cauldron during the three-hour opening show.

The cauldron is the first in Olympic history to light up without the use of fossil fuels. It uses water and electric light and is attached to a balloon. It made a stunning first flight at the Olympics opening ceremony.

Each day of the Paralympics, the cauldron will fly more than 60 meters (197 feet) above the Tuileries gardens from sunset until 2 a.m.

AP Paralympics and Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/paralympic-games and https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

WheelPower Patron, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson delivers a speech during the lighting of the Paralympic Flame in Stoke Mandeville, widely considered the birthplace of the Paralympic Games, England, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

ParalympicsGB President Nick Webborn OBE delivers a speech during the lighting of the Paralympic Flame in Stoke Mandeville, widely considered the birthplace of the Paralympic Games, England, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Andrew Parsons delivers a speech during the lighting of the Paralympic Flame in Stoke Mandeville, widely considered the birthplace of the Paralympic Games, England, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Andrew Parsons holds up the Paralympic Torch during the flame lighting ceremony in Stoke Mandeville, widely considered the birthplace of the Paralympic Games, England, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

British Paralympian Helene Raynsford holds the Paralympic Torch during the flame lighting ceremony in Stoke Mandeville, widely considered the birthplace of the Paralympic Games, England, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

British Paralympian Gregor Ewan holds the Paralympic Torch during the flame lighting ceremony in Stoke Mandeville, widely considered the birthplace of the Paralympic Games, England, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

British Paralympians Helene Raynsford and Gregor Ewan light the Paralympic Flame in Stoke Mandeville, widely considered the birthplace of the Paralympic Games, England, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

FILE - The logo of the Paralympic Games is seen on the Goalball pitch during a visit of the Arena Paris Sud venue ahead of the Paralympic Games, on Aug. 19, 2024 in Paris. The flame will be lit on Saturday Aug. 24, 2024 in Stoke Mandeville, a village northwest of London and will then travel to France under the English Channel to begin the four-day relay from northern beaches to Paris. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, File)

FILE - Margaret Maughan, Britain's first Paralympic gold medalist, lights the Paralympic flame during the Opening Ceremony for the 2012 Paralympics in London, on Aug. 29, 2012. The flame will be lit on Saturday Aug. 24, 2024 in Stoke Mandeville, a village northwest of London and will then travel to France under the English Channel to begin the four-day relay from northern beaches to Paris. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — The New England Patriots were so bad last year they fired six-time Super Bowl-winning coach Bill Belichick. The Seattle Seahawks weren’t much better, reason enough to get rid of Pete Carroll — the only coach ever to lead them to the NFL title.

And on Sunday night, one of those teams will be 2-0.

“You see the direction that we’re trying to go, you see what happens when you do follow the process, and you do buy into the plan,” Patriots quarterback Jacoby Brissett said this week. “Some days … you’re not going to get the results you want. But I think it’s even more apparent after you do get those results.”

The Seahawks and Patriots have both fallen far since their matchup in Super Bowl 49, when Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson at the goal line and Tom Brady knelt out the final seconds to seal yet another championship for New England.

Wilson is on his third team, as a backup in Pittsburgh after two unsuccessful seasons in Denver. Butler has retired, and he will be back on Sunday along with 20 teammates to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 2014 title.

Belichick and Carroll are out of the league after failing to rekindle their success with new quarterbacks. Everyone on the team was invited but Belichick and Brady are not expected to attend.

“While some prominent members of that 2014 team now have broadcasting obligations and are unable to attend, nearly half of the team will be in attendance,” the Patriots said.

The teams replaced the two oldest head coaches in the league with the two youngest: Former Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo took over on the New England sideline, and Seattle went with ex-Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald.

“I think Coach Mayo and I would agree that this game is not about us. It’s not,” Macdonald said. “It’s about our guys going out and playing and making the plays that it’s going to take to win the game. Our age really has nothing to do with what’s about to happen on Sunday.”

Both won their debuts.

New England, which was 4-13 last season, was the biggest underdog in the NFL last week before beating Cincinnati 16-10. A year after going 9-8, Seattle was expected to beat the Broncos in the opener and did, winning 26-20 to get Macdonald off to a winning start.

“From a coaching perspective, our job is to teach these guys how to win,” Mayo said. “When you won a lot, having that sense of urgency to not fall into being comfortable (is important). We won one game.

“If we don’t go out there and execute and play right, we could be sitting right here and then you’re going to say, ‘Jerod, you seem like you’re in a down mood,’” Mayo said with a laugh. “That’s my job as the head coach of the team: to make sure that these guys are ready to change the page.”

The call came out from the New England sideline in Cincinnati: “Take them to the hill.”

It was a reference to the steep hill where the Patriots ran sprints at the end of training camp practices. The message: Their conditioning was a team strength, especially when trying to run out the clock at the end of the game.

“Just hearing that from the players, it meant a lot,” Mayo said. “That just means taking them into the deep water and all the extra things that we do, it pays off. It pays off in the long term.”

With the Patriots holding the lead in the final minutes, Rhamondre Stevenson ran the ball four straight times, picking up a pair of first downs that allowed them to run out the clock.

“We’re running one play the whole time and they’re not stopping it, so why change it?” Brissett said. “I think that was one of the cooler moments in my career. Everybody in the huddle was saying, ‘Let’s take them to the hill,’ because we knew we were in that much better shape than they were. And I think it paid off.”

Seattle's secondary was believed to be the strength of its defense and that showed in the opener. Safety Julian Love had 12 tackles and an interception. Riq Woolen sprinted across the field to get his first interception of the year after having only two picks last season. New safety K'Von Wallace played just a handful of snaps but forced a key fumble. And second-year cornerback Devon Witherspoon was all over the field being used in a variety of ways.

It was just one game, but it displayed some of the different ways that the skills of Seattle's secondary can be used both in coverage and when bringing pressure.

“We played fast, simply put," Love said. "We played fast. We played aggressive. Guys were able to try to shoot their shot, but they knew they had backup. They knew guys were on the way and so when you play that way, free, it all works together.”

AP Sports Writer Tim Booth contributed to this story from Seattle.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald reacts during the first half of an NFL football game against the Denver Broncos, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Seattle Seahawks running back Zach Charbonnet (26) scores a touchdown during the second half of an NFL football game against the Denver Broncos, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/John Froschauer)

Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton shakes hands with Seattle Seahawks linebacker Jerome Baker (17) after an NFL football game Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024, in Seattle. The Seattle Seahawks won 26-20. (AP Photo/John Froschauer)

Seattle Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III (9) leaps into the end zone for a touchdown during the second half of an NFL football game against the Denver Broncos, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/John Froschauer)

New England Patriots quarterback Jacoby Brissett (7) hands the ball off to running back Rhamondre Stevenson (38) during the first half of an NFL football game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

New England Patriots quarterback Jacoby Brissett (7) throws a pass during the second half of an NFL football game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)