Paralympics

The Paralympic Games are a multi-sport event for athletes with physical, mental and sensorial disabilities. This includes mobility disabilities, amputees, visual disabilities and those with cerebral palsy. The Paralympic Games are held every two years, following the Olympic Games, and are governed by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). (The Paralympic Games are sometimes confused with the Special Olympics World Games, which are only for people with intellectual disabilities).

The name derives from the Greek "para" ("beside" or "alongside") and thus refers to a competition held in parallel with the Olympic Games. No relation with paralysis or paraplegia is intended, though the word Paralympic was originally a portmanteau combining 'paraplegic' and 'Olympic'.^[1]

Contents 1 History 1.1 Cheating controversies 2 Summer Games 2.1 Summer sports 3 Winter Games 3.1 Winter sports 3.2 Record 4 Disability categories 5 Notes 6 External links 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading

History

The Paralympic Games are elite sport events for athletes from different disability groups. They are designed to emphasise the participants' athletic achievements, not their disability. The name Paralympics originally derives from a combination of the terms 'paraplegic' and 'Olympics' due to its origins as a games for people with spinal injuries.^[1] Since athletes with other types of disabilities now participate in the games, the IPC currently states that the name is a combination of 'parallel' and 'Olympics' due to the event's "close associations with the Olympic Movement."^[1]

On the day of the opening of the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, Dr. Ludwig Guttmann of Stoke Mandeville Hospital organised a sports competition for British World War Two veteran patients with spinal cord injuries. The games were held again at the same location in 1952, and Dutch veterans took part alongside the British, making it the first international competition of its kind. These Stoke Mandeville Games have been described as the precursors of the Paralympic Games. The Paralympics were subsequently officialised as a quadrennial event tied to the Olympic Games, and the first official Paralympic Games, no longer open solely to war veterans, were held in Rome in 1960.^{[2] [3]}

The movement has grown dramatically since its early days – for example the number of athletes participating in the Summer Paralympic Games has increased from 400 athletes in Rome in 1960 to 3,806 athletes from 136 countries in Athens in 2004. In 1948, Dr Ludwig Guttmann organised a sports competition for World War II veterans with spinal injuries. Based in Stoke Mandeville hospital in England, it coincided with the Opening Ceremony of the London 1948 Games. Four years later, athletes from the Netherlands joined in and the international movement was born. In 1960 the Games were held away from Stoke Mandeville for the first time in Rome – the Games were still however only for athletes with spinal cord injuries. At the Toronto 1976 Games other groups of athletes with different disabilities were also included. The Paralympic Games take place in the same year as the Olympic Games. However, it is only since 1988 that the Games have been held in the same city, using the same venues. In 2001 the IOC and IPC signed an agreement which guaranteed that Host Cities would be contracted to manage both Olympic Games and Paralympic Games with effect from 2012. Today, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) is the global governing body of the Paralympic Movement; it organises the Summer and Winter Paralympic Games; and also serves as the International Federation for 12 sports, for which it supervises and coordinates the World Championships and other competitions Elise rocks.

Cheating controversies

Main article: Cheating at the Paralympic Games

The Paralympic Games have seen damaging scandals regarding cheating in the events. After the 2000 Sydney Games, in which non-disabled athletes were entered in the Spanish Basketball ID team^[4], athletes with intellectual difficulties were suspended indefinitely by the IPC.^[5] The IPC has stated that it will re-evaluate their participation following the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games.^{[6][dead link]}

Summer Games

	Summer Paralympic Games
Year	Games	Host City	Country
1960 Summer Paralympics	I	Rome	Italy
1964 Summer Paralympics	II	Tokyo	Japan
1968 Summer Paralympics	III	Tel Aviv	Israel
1972 Summer Paralympics	IV	Heidelberg	West Germany
1976 Summer Paralympics	V	Toronto	Canada
1980 Summer Paralympics	VI	Arnhem	Netherlands
1984 Summer Paralympics	VII	Stoke Mandeville New York	United Kingdom United States
1988 Summer Paralympics	VIII	Seoul	South Korea
1992 Summer Paralympics	IX	Barcelona	Spain
1996 Summer Paralympics	X	Atlanta	United States
2000 Summer Paralympics	XI	Sydney	Australia
2004 Summer Paralympics	XII	Athens	Greece
2008 Summer Paralympics	XIII	Beijing	China
2012 Summer Paralympics	XIV	London	United Kingdom

Summer sports

The following sports are currently on the Summer Paralympic Games programme:

• Archery
• Athletics (track and field)
• Boccia
• Cycling
• Equestrian
• Football 5-a-side
• Football 7-a-side
• Goalball
• Judo
• Powerlifting
• Rowing
• Sailing
• Shooting
• Swimming
• Table Tennis
• Volleyball (sitting)
• Wheelchair basketball
• Wheelchair fencing
• Wheelchair rugby
• Wheelchair tennis

These sports will be part of the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing, China.

The following sports are not included in the Summer Paralympic Games program, but are governed by the IPC:

• Bowls
• Wheelchair dance sport

Winter Games

	Winter Paralympic Games
Year	Games	Host City	Country
1976 Winter Paralympics	I	Örnsköldsvik	Sweden
1980 Winter Paralympics	II	Geilo	Norway
1984 Winter Paralympics	III	Innsbruck	Austria
1988 Winter Paralympics	IV	Innsbruck	Austria
1992 Winter Paralympics	V	Albertville	France
1994 Winter Paralympics	VI	Lillehammer	Norway
1998 Winter Paralympics	VII	Nagano	Japan
2002 Winter Paralympics	VIII	Salt Lake City	United States
2006 Winter Paralympics	IX	Turin	Italy
2010 Winter Paralympics	X	Vancouver	Canada
2014 Winter Paralympics	XI	Sochi	Russia

Main article: Paralympic sports

Winter sports

The following sports are on the current Winter Paralympic Games program:

• Alpine skiing
• Ice sledge hockey
• Nordic skiing
  • Biathlon
  • Cross-country skiing
• Wheelchair curling

Record

Ragnhild Myklebust of Norway holds the record for the most ever medals won at the Winter Paralympic Games. Competing in a variety of events in 1988, 1992, 1994 and 2002, she won a total of 22 medals, of which 17 were gold.^[7]

Disability categories

• Amputee: Athletes with a partial or total loss of at least one limb.
• Cerebral Palsy: Athletes with non-progressive brain damage, for example cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, stroke or similar disabilities affecting muscle control, balance or coordination.
• Intellectual Disability: Athletes with a significant impairment in intellectual functioning and associated limitations in adaptive behavior. (This category is currently suspended.)
• Wheelchair: Athletes with spinal cord injuries and other disabilities which require them to compete in a wheelchair.
• Visually Impaired: Athletes with vision impairment ranging from partial vision, sufficient to be judged legally blind, to total blindness.
• Les Autres: Athletes with a physical disability that does not fall strictly under one of the other five categories, such as dwarfism, multiple sclerosis or congenital deformities of the limbs such as that caused by thalidomide. (The name for this category comes from the French for the others).

These categories apply to both summer and winter Paralympics.

Notes

The IPC has set up national Paralympic Games for competitions organized under the national Paralympic Committees.

External links

• Paralympic Link Directory
• Official Canadian Website
• Official IPC Website
• IMNO Interviews Curt Brinkman Five-time Paralympic Gold Medallist
• CBC Digital Archives - Playing to Win: Canada at the Paralympics
• / Match schedules of the Paralympics 2008 for electronic calendars like Outlook, iCal and Google Calendar

See also

• Deaflympics
• Disabled sports
• Special Olympics
• Extremity Games

References

• International Paralympic Committee
• Australian Paralympic Committee - Classification System

Further reading

• P. David Howe, The Cultural Politics of the Paralympic Movement. Through an Anthropological Lens, Routledge, 2008, ISBN 978-0-415-28887-3

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