48 Fun Facts About The Paralympics

Since 1988, when are the Paralympics held relative to the Olympics?

Shortly after them, in the same host city: the pairing began with the 1988 Games and has been binding since 2001, when the two movements agreed that a city bidding for one must stage both.

The 1948 Stoke Mandeville Games that grew into the Paralympics had 16 wheelchair athletes competing in which sport?

Archery was the only event: 16 injured servicemen and women shot from their wheelchairs, because their hospital had made sport part of rehabilitation and wanted a contest to aim for.

Which German-Jewish neurologist, a refugee from Nazi Germany, founded the games at Stoke Mandeville Hospital?

Ludwig Guttmann set up his centre at the hospital in 1944 at the British government's request and made sport part of the treatment, first as recreation and then as competition.

The first Stoke Mandeville Games were held on 29 July 1948, the same day as what?

The opening of the London Olympics fell on the same day; the founder wanted an elite event for disabled athletes to equal the Olympics, and in 1952 ex-servicemen from abroad joined to make it international.

In which city were the first official Paralympic Games held in 1960?

Rome staged the Games days after its Olympics closed, the first time the Stoke Mandeville Games had left Britain, and only later were they recognised as the first Paralympics.

The 1984 Summer Paralympics skipped Olympic host Los Angeles and were split between Stoke Mandeville and which US city?

New York staged events on Long Island for amputee and blind athletes, among others, while wheelchair athletes met in England, because the sports bodies had no formal ties to the Los Angeles organisers.

How does Egyptian Paralympian Ibrahim Hamadtou, who lost both arms as a boy, hold his table tennis bat?

In his mouth: Hamadtou lost his arms in a train accident at ten, spent nearly a year learning to grip the bat between his teeth, and uses his foot to toss the ball up for a serve.

Which sport was on the programme of the first Paralympics in 1960?

Dartchery had archers shoot arrows at a dartboard-style target; it was one of eight sports at the first Games and stayed on the programme through 1980 before being dropped for good.

The name Paralympic is widely said to blend Olympic with which word?

Paraplegic is a widely repeated origin, since the games began for patients with spinal injuries, though some dictionaries say 'parallel' and the movement now explains 'para' as Greek for 'alongside'.

The term 'Paralympic' first came into official use at the 1988 Games in which city?

Seoul gave the Paralympics the Olympic venues for the first time in 24 years, which is why the 1988 Games came to be known as the first of the modern Paralympic era.

At which Summer Paralympics were athletes with disabilities other than spinal injuries included for the first time?

Toronto 1976 admitted amputees and visually impaired athletes for the first time, yet the Games shrank in another way, as several countries pulled out in protest at South Africa taking part.

Where were the first Winter Paralympics held in 1976?

Örnsköldsvik, Sweden staged Alpine and cross-country races for amputee and visually impaired skiers; the sport had grown since the war, when injured soldiers tried to get back on their skis.

Which one rule change lets wheelchair tennis be played on a standard court with standard equipment?

The ball may bounce twice before it is returned; the rule dates from 1976, when Brad Parks, a freestyle skier paralysed in an accident, began adapting the game from his wheelchair.

Where has the International Paralympic Committee been headquartered since 1999?

Bonn, Germany won the headquarters against bids from a field of other cities; the committee had been founded ten years earlier in nearby Düsseldorf.

Which name, from the Latin for 'I move', is given to the three crescents of the Paralympic symbol?

Agitos circle a central point to suggest athletes in motion, and they come in red, blue and green because those are the three colours most widely used in the world's national flags.

Why was the first Paralympic logo, five Korean tae-geuk shapes, redrawn with only three?

It resembled the IOC's emblem: the five shapes sat in the same pattern and colours as the Olympic symbol, so the IOC asked for a change in 1991 and a three-shape version took over after 1994.

Which slogan did the International Paralympic Committee launch with its new look in October 2019?

'Change Starts with Sport' was launched as the committee's brand narrative alongside a redrawn symbol, to spell out what the movement does for society; 'Spirit in Motion' dates from Athens 2004.

Para powerlifters at the Paralympics compete in which single lift?

Bench press is the only lift because the sport is a pure test of upper-body strength, and the best lifters press up to three times their own bodyweight.

Which single language is the official language of the Paralympic movement?

English is the International Paralympic Committee's sole official language; Games announcements are made in English plus the host country's official languages, whereas the IOC also uses French.

How does the hoop in wheelchair basketball compare with the one in the running game?

The same height: court, hoop and backboards match the running game, so players shoot from their chairs at a full-height rim, and must bounce or pass the ball after every two pushes.

Which blind American swimmer won 55 Paralympic medals between 1980 and 2004?

Trischa Zorn, blind since birth, won 55 Paralympic swimming medals, 41 of them gold, across seven Games from Arnhem 1980 to Athens 2004.

Ragnhild Myklebust won 22 gold medals at the Winter Paralympics between 1988 and 2002, competing for which country?

Norway: Myklebust had polio as a small child, so she raced sitting down, on a sit-ski over snow and a sledge over ice, and was 58 when she won the last of her golds in 2002.

Which country's intellectual-disability basketball team was stripped of its 2000 gold after most players were found not to be disabled?

Spain's team lost its gold after Carlos Ribagorda, an undercover journalist who played in it, revealed that most of the squad had never been tested for a disability; the scandal kept such events out of the Games until 2012.

'Boosting', a banned technique in Paralympic sport, involves athletes deliberately doing what?

Raising their blood pressure through self-harm, such as breaking a toe or overfilling the bladder, can lift an athlete with a spinal injury by up to 15 per cent; the IPC banned it in 1994.

Which American gymnast competed at the 1904 Olympics with a wooden leg?

George Eyser, whose left leg was amputated after a train ran over it, won six medals in a single day at St. Louis, three of them gold, competing on a wooden prosthesis.

Which New Zealand archer competed from a wheelchair at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics?

Neroli Fairhall took up archery after a motorbike accident paralysed her from the waist down, won Commonwealth Games gold in 1982 and reached the Olympics two years later.

Britain's Sarah Storey won Paralympic golds as a swimmer before switching to which sport?

Cycling: Storey first raced in the pool at 14, took up the bike in 2005 only because an ear infection kept her out of the water, and by 2024 had 19 golds, the most of any British Paralympian.

Which company manufactured the carbon-fibre 'Flex-Foot Cheetah' blades Oscar Pistorius raced on?

Össur, the Icelandic prosthetics maker, produced the Flex-Foot Cheetah, a J-shaped carbon-fibre blade invented by American engineer Van Phillips, whose company Össur bought in 2000.

Which movement, separate from the Paralympics, did Eunice Kennedy Shriver found in 1968 for athletes with intellectual disabilities?

Special Olympics grew out of a summer camp Shriver ran in her own backyard in the early 1960s, and held its first Games at Soldier Field in Chicago in July 1968.

Boccia was originally designed for people with which condition?

Cerebral palsy: boccia was designed for players with severe impairments and has since opened to others whose motor skills are affected; it joined the Games in 1984 and has no Olympic counterpart.

How do goalball players judge the position of the ball?

By the sound of bells inside it: every player wears blackout eyeshades so that blind and partially sighted athletes compete as equals, and the crowd must stay silent while the ball is in play.

Goalball was devised in 1946 by an Austrian and a German as a rehabilitation exercise for whom?

Blinded war veterans: goalball began as rehabilitation for soldiers who lost their sight in the Second World War; today three players a side throw themselves full-length to block shots at a goal as wide as the nine-metre court.

By what violent-sounding name was wheelchair rugby originally known?

Murderball was the name its inventors gave the game in the 1970s because of its full-contact collisions, and the Oscar-nominated 2005 documentary Murderball carried the name into cinemas.

In which country was wheelchair rugby invented in the 1970s?

Canada: quadriplegic athletes in Winnipeg devised the game because wheelchair basketball left them in supporting roles, and it borrows from basketball and handball as much as from rugby.

Sitting volleyball was invented in 1956 as a rehabilitation sport for injured soldiers in which country?

The Netherlands: the Dutch Sports Committee created sitting volleyball in 1956 by combining volleyball with sitzball, a German seated game without a net; it became a Paralympic medal sport at Arnhem 1980.

Which Welsh wheelchair racer won 11 Paralympic golds and six London Marathons?

Tanni Grey-Thompson won 16 Paralympic medals in all and held more than 30 world records; she retired in 2007 and three years later was made a life peer with a seat in the House of Lords.

Which country topped the medal table at every Summer Paralympics from Athens 2004 to Paris 2024?

China had finished only sixth in the table at the 2000 Games, then leapt to first place in Athens four years later, with Beijing's own Games next on the calendar.

Which UK broadcaster took over Paralympic television rights from London 2012 with its 'Meet the Superhumans' trailer?

Channel 4 set the trailer to Public Enemy's 'Harder Than You Think' and premiered it at the same moment on 78 UK channels, rivals ITV1 and Sky1 among them.

In boccia, what may players with the most severe impairments use to send the ball onto the court?

A ramp: the player aims it and releases the ball with a pointer, helped by an operator who must keep their back to the court and who also receives a medal if the player wins.

Which sport made its Paralympic debut at Tokyo 2020 alongside taekwondo?

Badminton joined the programme at Tokyo 2020 with taekwondo, taking the places of sailing and seven-a-side football, which were dropped because too few countries played them.

Which was the first Winter Paralympics staged two years apart from the Summer Games?

Lillehammer 1994 was the first Winter Paralympics held in a different year from the Summer Games, after the IOC moved the Winter Olympics onto their own four-year cycle beginning in 1994.

What is unusual about the wheelchairs used in Paralympic fencing?

They are fixed in place: metal frames lock both chairs to the floor at an angle to each other, so fencers can only lean and reach with the upper body, never advance or retreat.

Which Paralympics were the first to be webcast, with 100 hours streamed to more than 100 countries?

Sydney 2000 put 100 hours of sport online so that fans in countries with no television coverage could still follow the Games, and it sold nearly 1.2 million tickets, a record at the time.

Which country's Paralympians won the most medals at Vancouver 2010 while its Olympians badly underperformed?

Russia won 38 medals, more than any other team, yet did not top the table: Germany took 13 golds to Russia's 12, and the table ranks teams by golds.

Denmark's Lis Hartel, paralysed below the knees by polio, won Olympic silver medals in 1952 and 1956 in which sport?

Dressage: Hartel had to be helped onto her horse, yet in 1952, the first Games at which the event was open to riders who were not army officers, she beat all but one of the field.

Which country hosted the 1968 Summer Paralympics after Mexico City declined?

Israel stepped in at Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, after Mexico's government backed out two years ahead citing technical difficulties; it wanted the Games to mark 20 years of independence.

Which move, banned in standing volleyball, is allowed in the sitting game at the Paralympics?

Blocking the serve is legal in the sitting game, played over a net just over a metre high; the catch is that a player who lifts their pelvis off the floor while playing the ball is penalised.

How did the Paris 2024 Paralympic flame travel from Stoke Mandeville to France?

By tunnel: 24 British athletes carried the flame under the sea and handed it to 24 French athletes halfway, and at Calais it was split into twelve flames that toured France before the Games began.