Paralympic Games are an international sports event for male and female athletes with a variety of physical limitations. The Paralympic Games closely resemble the Olympic Games. They both are divided into summer and winter games and are held every four years. The Paralympics take place shortly after the regular Olympics conclude. The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) organizes and governs the games.
The Paralympics are sometimes confused with the Special Olympics. The Paralympics primarily feature athletes with physical impairments. The Special Olympics concentrate on participants with intellectual disabilities. In addition, deaf athletes can compete in games called the Deaflympics, which started in 1924. These games are organized by the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf and recognized by the International Olympic Committee.
The IPC defines 10 types of eligible impairments for participating athletes. These include such conditions as impaired muscle power, visual impairment, and intellectual impairment. Each sport in the Paralympics allows athletes from particular impairment groups to participate. Many Paralympic events resemble those in the Olympic Games. Others are adapted to accommodate the disabilities of the athletes, such as wheelchair fencing and wheelchair curling.
The first disabled athlete to compete in the Olympic Games was probably George Eyser, a German American amputee who won six medals as a gymnast in the 1904 Summer Olympics. The first organized competition for athletes with disabilities took place at the 1948 Summer Games in London. The organizers named the first games the Stoke Mandeville Games, after a British hospital that treated paraplegia (paralysis of the legs and lower body). The competition was then held annually, with increasing numbers of competitors. These early games were the forerunners of the modern Paralympics.
The first formal Summer Paralympic Games were held in 1960 in Rome, with 400 athletes competing. The games grew continually during the 1900’s and early 2000’s, with about 4,400 athletes participating in Tokyo, Japan, in 2021. The 2020 Summer Games were held in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The contagious respiratory disease began in China in late 2019 and spread throughout the world in early 2020. The first Winter Games were held in 1976 in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, with about 200 athletes participating. In the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, China, about 560 athletes with disabilities competed.
