Paralympic Games

The Paralympic Games, also known as the Games of the Paralympiad, are a periodic series of international multi-sport events involving athletes who have a variety of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power, impaired passive range of movement, limb deficiency, leg length difference, short stature, hypertonia, ataxia, athetosis, vision impairment, and intellectual impairment. There are two types of Paralympic Games: winter and summer. Since the Seoul Summer Olympics in 1988, the Paralympic Games have been held nearly immediately after the corresponding Olympic Games. The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) is in charge of all Paralympic Games (IPC).

From a modest meeting of British World War II veterans in 1948, the Paralympics have evolved to become one of the world's biggest international sports events by the early twenty-first century. The Paralympics have expanded from 400 athletes with disabilities from 23 nations in 1960 to thousands of participants from over 100 countries in the 2012 Summer Paralympics. Paralympians aim for parity with non-disabled Olympic athletes, however there is a significant financial disparity between Olympic and Paralympic competitors, which makes it difficult to achieve this goal.^[1]

The Paralympic Games are held concurrently with the Olympic Games, while the Special Olympics World Games, which are recognised by the International Olympic Committee, include athletes with intellectual impairments, and the Deaflympics include competitors who are deaf.^[2]

Because of the broad range of impairments that Para athletes have, there are a number of different divisions in which they compete. The permitted disabilities are subdivided into 10 categories of eligible impairments. The categories are as follows: poor muscular power, impaired passive range of movement, limb deficiency, leg length difference, short stature, hypertonia, ataxia, athetosis, visual impairment, and intellectual impairment. These categories are further subdivided into a number of subcategories.^[3]

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