Full coverage: 2016 Rio Paralympic Games

To Brazil where the Rio Paralympics will get underway later today when the opening ceremony at the Maracana Stadium kicks off the Games. On Tuesday the cauldron was lit marking the beginning of the torch relay which will tour around the city for two days before the gala.

The Paralympic torch is ignited ahead of the Paralympic torch relay in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Sept. 4, 2016. The Rio 2016 Paralympic Games will be held from Sept. 7 to 18. (Xinhua/Rahel Patrass)

The torch was lit at the Museum of Tomorrow in the centre of the cidade maravilhosa after the flames from the five other Brazilian relay host cities had converged. The event is expected to be smaller than originally planned due to a scaling back of venue seating and staff levels because of budget cuts. Only a last-minute Brazilian government bailout helped save the privately-funded Paralympics from a shortfall. But ticket sales have picked up at the last moment, going from 200 thousand sold at the end of the Olympics to 1.5 million-plus on the eve of the opening ceremony.

Later, The Paralympic torch held aloft beside Rio de Janeiro's famous Christ the Redeemer statue. Meanwhile, the Christ the Redeemer statue was itself illuminated in yellow and red, the colours of the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. 4,300 athletes from 161 nations including a special refugee team will compete and the president of the International Paralympic Committee, Sir Philip Craven, is confident of a successful event.

"The venues are ready, the athletes are in the village, I am going there now, I was there yesterday, and they are very happy with the facilities there, transport is the crucial thing, but we are confident that even though it's reduced in its... I don't know how I would put that, in its spread maybe or in its availability, we're going to make it work. So we are going to have a great Games," said IPC President Sir Philip Craven.