On the eve of the Rio Paralympics organisers say they are selling 40,000 tickets a day and a spirit of optimism now pervades the cash-strapped event.
"It's helped by the fact that the Brazilian team did so well in the final weekend of the Olympics," said International Paralympic Committee spokesman Craig Spence on Tuesday.
"It gave the Cariocas a flavor of what they can expect here in Rio with the Brazilian team chasing a top five finish in the medals table."
Spence and Mario Andrada, the spokesman for the local organising committee gave an upbeat assessment of a Games that faced severe budget shortfalls and concerns about accessibility for the disabled athletes.
They tried to assure the world that preparations are going smoothly, though neither promised the best Paralympics ever, four years after a games in London that were considered a turning point in sports for people with disabilities.
"It's impossible in the modern era to have a glitch-free games - you haven't seen any in history," Andrada said.
"As far as Rio 2016 is concerned, we hope to learn from the IPC as much as we learn from the IOC. We hope we can react to our glitches and, eventually, our mistakes as fast as we did during the Olympic Games."
Ticket sales had reached 1.6 million and were expected to overtake the 2008 Beijing tally of 1.7 million, making Rio the second best-attended Paralympics behind London 2012, according to Spence.
After over a month delay, travel grants were finally being paid on Tuesday for all of the countries, easing a worry that some nations couldn't afford to send athletes to Rio.
After the news conference, Spence said there were now athletes from 159 countries on the ground in Brazil, plus two "independent" refugee athletes.
Eighty-four Russian athletes lost their bid to compete as individuals on Tuesday in a German court ruling, a legal bid that followed the IPC's ban on the entire Russian team for systematic doping.
