As Rio said farewell to the 2016 Paralympics with a closing ceremony showcasing Brazil's passion for music, a leading Thai official voiced concern that the Kingdom's historic feat in the 15th edition may never be repeated again.
The Thai athletes with disabilities took home a record six gold, six silver and six bronze medals from the Rio tournament.
It was a historical achievement for the country, surpassing not only their previous best tally of five titles at Sydney 2000 but also their pre-Rio Paralympic target of four gold medals. Thailand have been participating in the Paralympics since 1984.
The Thai contingent finished 23rd overall in the medals table, improving on their last show in London where they were spotted in 31st place with four gold, two silver and two bronze medals four years ago.
However, Osoth Bhavilai, secretary-general of the Paralympic Committee of Thailand, believes that the country's athletes will find it an uphill task to match their feat in Rio de Janeiro again in the future.
"Anyone in charge of the team in the future will find it too tough to repeat this achievement," said Osoth, also a former president of the Sports Association for the Disabled of Thailand.
"It won't be easy because the competition is only likely to get tougher. Importantly, the number of disabled athletes in Thailand is declining.
"It takes time to develop athletes who can deliver at such a high level."
Thailand, as well as several other countries, enjoyed good results partly because Russia was banned from the Rio tournament.
Taking part in 10 sports, the Thais managed to win medals in wheelchair racing, boccia, table tennis, archery and wheelchair fencing only. They were empty-handed in shooting, swimming, power lifting, wheelchair tennis and judo competitions.
Osoth, who has been associated with the Thai Paralympic teams since 2000, said improvements were especially needed in shooting and archery as the Thai players were not strong enough.
"They struggled to control their equipment in the shooting and archery events," he added.
According to Osoth, the number of registered disabled people in Thailand is about 1.2 million and only about 2,500 actively take part in sports.
He added that in some sports like power lifting and swimming, there are not enough athletes to form up proper national teams.
"The good thing is that there is no age limit for the athletes in the Paralympic Games, so we might see Prawat [Wahoram] in Tokyo 2020 again," he said.
Prawat, 35, took two gold medals in Rio and is Thailand's most successful Paralympian with seven titles overall.
A Thai Paralympic gold medalist will earn 7.2 million baht from the National Sports Development Fund, while a silver medallist will get 4.8 million baht and a bronze medallist three million baht.
Separately, the associations of the successful athletes will earn 30 percent and coaches 20 percent of the incentives received by their medallists.
In all, the government will pay 180.7 million baht, including 144.6 million baht for the successful athletes.
Pongsakorn Paeyo, 19, will be top earner with 24 million baht, thanks to his two gold and two silver medals in wheelchair racing.
For the closing ceremony, the famous Maracana Stadium was packed, with the Paralympians themselves seated across the field, as proceedings kicked off with fireworks.
Among the first performers was Jonathan Bastos, a Brazilian who was born without arms but has became an accomplished musician, playing the guitar with his feet. Then it was Ricardinho, star of Brazil's gold medal winning five-a-side Paralympic football team, who brought out the national flag.
But the glittering celebration -- at one point featuring an unscripted conga line of dancing athletes -- paused for a minute's silence to remember the fatal crash of an Iranian cyclist on Saturday.
Bahman Golbarnezhad's death during the road race left the Paralympic movement "united in grief", Philip Craven, the International Paralympic Committee president, said in a speech.
Overall, organisers are breathing a sigh of relief that predictions of failure for South America's first Olympics and Paralympics were proved wrong.
"Mission accomplished," said Carlos Nuzman, president of the Rio organising committee.
Referring to the political instability and deep recession plaguing Brazil, he conceded that it had been "a mission of many doubts".
As Craven declared the Games over -- with Tokyo now taking up the baton for 2020 -- he said Brazil had passed a difficult test.
"These Games importantly signal a very bright future for this youthful and wonderful nation," Craven said.
Eleven days of competition where China dominated the medals table, followed by Britain, ended earlier with the last few events, including marathons and wheelchair rugby.
Watching the marathon along the seafront in Copacabana earlier, spectator Marcelo Augusto Miranda Costa said the Games had been "a moment of magic for the city".
"We're going to miss them, yes," he said.
The generally positive ending was quite the turnaround from a few weeks ago when the Rio organisers' woeful finances in the wake of the August Olympics and a stunning lack of interest in tickets raised fears of failure.
By the end, officials said, they had sold 2.1 million tickets -- fewer than London in 2012 but more than Beijing four years earlier. Part of that success, however, was due to many tickets being sold for as little as US$3 -- or given away to school children in an international fill-the-seats campaign.
Also haunting these Paralympics was Brazil's political crisis. President Michel Temer, who had just taken power after his rival Dilma Rousseff was thrown out of office in an impeachment vote, was loudly booed by the crowd at both at the Olympic and Paralympic opening ceremonies.
Although Temer did not attend the closing ceremony, one of the performers, Lucio Maia from the band Nacao Zumbi, took the opportunity to flash a "Get out Temer" sign to the television cameras.
And tensions over a ban imposed by the International Paralympic Committee on the entire Russian team because of alleged state doping remain strong.
Craven warned earlier that "major change" will be needed from Russia to be allowed back into Paralympic competition.
The gap between the Olympic and Paralympic performances is gradually blurring with disabled athletes breaking records after records in Rio.
Once more, it was China that dominated overall, with 239 medals, including 107 golds -- far ahead of Britain with 147 total and 64 golds. Bangkok Post/AFP