Paris will host the summer games for the first time in 2024. It is the second time France will have hosted a Paralympics after the 1992 Winter Games in Tignes and Albertville.
About 4,400 athletes from around the world will take part in 22 sports, cheered on by crowds again after the rescheduled Tokyo Games in 2021 were held behind closed doors.
Sporting Tribune puts together a guide with everything you need to know about this summer’s Paralympics.
The Paralympics will begin with the opening ceremony on Wednesday, 28 August.
A total of 22 gold medals will be decided on the opening day of competition on Thursday, 29 August.
The final day on Sunday, 8 September will feature medal events in wheelchair basketball, Para-powerlifting, Para-canoe and wheelchair marathons as well as the closing ceremony, which will take place at the Stade de France.
Like the Olympic opening ceremony, the Paralympic ceremony will be held outside a stadium for the first time.
But it will not feature boats floating down the River Seine. Instead, athletes will take part in what is being described as a ‘people’s parade’ travelling past some of Paris’ most iconic landmarks, located along the route between the Champs-Elysees and the Place de la Concorde.
Spectators can watch for free along the route before the official parade and before formalities take place in front of ticket-holders at the Place de la Concorde. Organisers estimate that around 50,000 people will watch the ceremony.
The ceremony will feature the usual mix of music and movement and performers with disabilities will play an integral role in the show.
Many of the venues being used at the Olympics will also stage Paralympic events.
The Stade de France will host the athletics, the La Defense Arena the swimming, wheelchair tennis will be at Roland Garros, and the picturesque Chateau de Versailles gardens will be the venue for the Para-equestrian events.
The Grand Palais, normally a venue for art and sport events, will host wheelchair fencing and Para-taekwondo, while the blind football competition will be in a specially built stadium at the foot of the iconic Eiffel Tower.
Para-triathletes will compete in the centre of Paris, with the swim leg due to take place in the River Seine.
There are 22 sports in the Paralympic programme:
Blind football
Boccia
Goalball
Para-archery
Para-athletics
Para-badminton
Para-canoe
Para-cycling
Para-equestrian
Para-judo
Para-powerlifting
Para-rowing
Para-swimming
Para-table tennis
Para-taekwondo
Para-triathlon
Shooting Para-sport
Sitting volleyball
Wheelchair basketball
Wheelchair fencing
Wheelchair rugby
Wheelchair tennis
The 35-member squad, comprising 23 athletes, seven coaches, and five medical personnel, touched down on Thursday after completing a training camp in Germany.
The Paralympic Committee of Nigeria (PCN) announced that Lauritta Onye will serve as the Flag Bearer, while Folashade Olufemi-Ayo has been named Team Captain.
At the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, Team Nigeria won ten medals. Since making its Paralympic debut at the 1992 Games in Barcelona where they secured three gold medals Nigeria has amassed a total of 80 medals: 40 gold, 19 silver, and 21 bronze, currently ranking 37th in the world.
Unlike the past two editions of the Games, where Para-triathlon and Para-canoe (Rio) and Para-taekwondo and Para-badminton (Tokyo) made their debuts, no new sports are included in the Paris programme.
However, the badminton and taekwondo programmes have been expanded and there are a record number of medal events for women.
A total of 549 gold medals will be up for grabs.
The increase in the profile of Para-sport has meant a gradual rise in the number of nations participating in a Paralympic Games.
The Paris Games will feature around 4,400 athletes from a record 168 delegations – still short of the 207 delegations who competed at the Olympics.
The total includes 167 National Paralympic Committees (NPC), an eight-strong Refugee Paralympic Team (RPT) and a Neutral Paralympic Athletes (NPA) delegation from Russia and Belarus.
The previous record was 164 delegations at London 2012 while the previous highest number of athletes at a Paralympic Games was 4,393 at Tokyo 2020.
Three NPCs – Eritrea, Kiribati and Kosovo – will make their Paralympic debut in the French capital.
Although what became known as the first Paralympics took place in Rome in 1960, the seeds of the Games were sown more than a decade earlier in Britain.
Sir Ludwig Guttman, a neurologist who was working with World War II veterans with spinal injuries at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, began using sport as part of the rehabilitation programmes of his patients.
In 1948, he set up a competition with other hospitals to coincide with the London Olympics and over the next decade his sporting idea was adopted by other spinal injury units in Britain.
In 1960, 400 wheelchair athletes from 23 countries came to the Italian capital to compete in 57 medal events across eight sports at the ninth Annual International Stoke Mandeville Games, now regarded as the Rome 1960 Paralympic Games.
Up next for Real is a trip to Real Betis on Friday night, while Alaves…
The result affects the race for European places as Brighton move into sixth, while Chelsea…
This marks a devastating second consecutive relegation for the club and their third demotion in…
The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion is eligible to play again after re-entering....
Bellingham, 22, is a cricket fan and played junior cricket for Hagley Cricket Club in…
Some transfers have still justified the outlay as the players involved delivered titles, goals and…
This website uses cookies.