50 Fun Facts About The Paralympics

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

Seoul was the first to use the same host city and most of the same venues, a precedent formalised by an IOC-IPC agreement in 2001.

The 1948 competition that grew into the Paralympics was for British war veterans with what kind of injury?

Guttmann ran the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, and every torch relay now begins there.

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

He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1966, and had once saved 60 of 64 Jewish patients from deportation by admitting them without question after Kristallnacht.

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

All the participants were paralysed patients, and Guttmann's aim was an elite competition equivalent to the Olympics.

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

They were also the ninth Stoke Mandeville Games, and were largely financed by an Italian workers' accident insurance fund.

How many athletes competed at the 1960 Rome Paralympics?

They came from 23 countries; the only disability included was spinal cord injury.

Which Italian doctor, a friend and follower of Guttmann, proposed staging the 1960 Games in Rome?

He was head of the Spinal Centre in Rome; the term for the Games was only approved by the IOC in 1984.

Which of these unusual sports was on the programme of the 1960 Rome Paralympics?

The eight sports also included snooker, wheelchair fencing and table tennis.

The name 'Paralympic' was originally a portmanteau of 'Olympic' and which word?

Once other disability groups joined, the official explanation switched to the Greek 'pará', meaning beside or alongside.

The term 'Paralympic' first came into official use at the 1988 Games in which city, the first to share the Olympic venues?

That precedent was followed in 1992, 1996 and 2000 and formalised by an IOC-IPC agreement in 2001.

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

With more classifications the Games grew to 1,600 athletes from 40 countries.

Where were the first Winter Paralympics held in 1976?

Sixteen countries sent 196 athletes for Alpine and Nordic skiing, plus a demonstration of ice sledge racing.

In which German city was the International Paralympic Committee founded on 22 September 1989?

Its headquarters are now in Bonn, and Canadian Robert Steadward was its first president.

Where has the International Paralympic Committee been headquartered since 1999?

Andrew Parsons has been its president since 2017; the IPC also acts as international federation for five sports.

What is the Latin-derived name for the three asymmetrical crescents in the Paralympic symbol?

Agito means 'I move'; the three colours, red, blue and green, are the ones most common in national flags.

The first IPC logo, created for the 1988 Games, was based on which traditional Korean decorative element?

Two pas make up the taegeuk on South Korea's flag; the IOC asked for a redesign in 1991 because five of them looked too like its own emblem.

What has the Paralympic motto been since 2019?

It replaced 'Spirit in Motion', introduced at Athens 2004.

What is the title of the Paralympic anthem, adopted in 1996?

Composed by Thierry Darnis, its name means 'Anthem of the Future'.

Unlike the Olympics, which single language is the official language of the Paralympic movement?

Announcements at each Games are made in it plus the host country's official languages.

How many eligible impairment types does the IPC recognise for Paralympic competition?

They range from limb deficiency and short stature to vision impairment and intellectual impairment.

Which American swimmer, blind from birth, is the most decorated Paralympian in history with 55 medals?

Forty-one of them were gold, won across seven Games from 1980 to 2004; she was also an alternate on the boycotted 1980 US Olympic team.

Which Norwegian holds the record for most Winter Paralympic medals, with 22 won between 1988 and 2002?

She retired at 58 after winning five golds at the 2002 Games.

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

A player claimed only two of the twelve met the rules; ID events were suspended until London 2012.

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

Trauma below a spinal injury is painless but can lift performance by up to 15%, especially in endurance events.

Who was the first athlete with a disability to compete at the Olympics, a gymnast with a wooden leg in 1904?

Later examples include Hungarian shooter Károly Takács, who lost his right arm and won gold shooting left-handed in 1948 and 1952.

Which New Zealand archer set the precedent for Paralympians at the Olympics by competing in Los Angeles in 1984?

She was a wheelchair user, and only the third Paralympian ever to appear at the Olympics.

By how much did Oscar Pistorius miss qualifying for the 2008 Olympic 400 metres?

He won Paralympic gold that year at 100, 200 and 400 metres, and reached the Olympic 400 m semi-final in London four years later.

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

Biomedical engineer Van Phillips developed the J-shaped prostheses; the nickname 'Blade Runner' came from the film.

Which two Paralympic sports have no counterpart on the Olympic programme?

Boccia is a precision ball game akin to bowls, and goalball is played with a ball full of bells.

Boccia was originally designed for people with which condition?

Players throw red or blue leather balls towards a white jack; it became a Paralympic sport in 1984.

How do goalball players judge the position of the ball?

All players wear eyeshades so the blind and partially sighted compete equally, in teams of three on a volleyball-sized court.

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

It became a full Paralympic sport in 1976 after a demonstration in Heidelberg in 1972.

By what violent-sounding name was the original four-a-side version of wheelchair rugby known?

Five Canadians invented the game in 1976 for people with tetraplegia, mixing rules from basketball, ice hockey, handball and rugby.

In which Canadian city was wheelchair rugby created in 1976?

Wheelchair basketball was too demanding on the upper body for players with tetraplegia, so five athletes devised an alternative.

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

It combined volleyball with sitzball, a German seated game without a net, and became a medal sport in 1980.

How many Paralympic medals did Welsh wheelchair racer Tanni Grey-Thompson win, including 11 golds?

She also won the London Marathon six times and set more than 30 world records before entering the House of Lords.

How many times did Tanni Grey-Thompson win the London Marathon between 1992 and 2002?

She began wheelchair racing at 13 and made her Paralympic debut for Wales at 15.

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

Its 2016 follow-up 'We're the Superhumans' won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions advertising festival.

By 8 August 2012, how many tickets had London sold for its Paralympics, beating Beijing's record?

Beijing had sold 1.8 million; London's organisers expected the first sell-out in Paralympic history.

How many athletes took part in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Paralympics?

They came from 163 National Paralympic Committees, making it one of the largest sporting events on Earth.

Which was the first Winter Paralympics to share venues and an organising committee with the Winter Olympics?

Since 1994 the Winter Games have been held two years after the Summer Games rather than in the same year.

In 2018 the IOC and IPC extended their agreement to stage the two Games together until which year?

Since 2001 the Paralympics have been automatically included in every Olympic bid.

Which Games in 2000 first reached a global TV audience of about 300 million and were the first Paralympics to be webcast?

For the first time the organisers did not have to pay networks to televise the Games, as they had in 1992 and 1996.

What is the name of the sports competition, held since 1924, that is exclusively for deaf athletes?

The Special Olympics, by contrast, are for people with intellectual disabilities and are recognised by the IOC.

From 2012 to 2024, Paralympic athletes were required to cover up tattoos of what during competition?

The IPC treated the Olympics as a third-party brand under its advertising rules; the ban ended after athlete protests.

Which country's Paralympic team topped the medal table at Vancouver 2010 while its Olympic team badly underperformed?

The contrast was widely noted ahead of the country's first home Winter Paralympics at Sochi in 2014.

Which Danish rider, who had polio, won Olympic dressage silver in 1952?

Hungarian Karoly Takacs, a right-arm amputee, also shot left-handed at the 1948 and 1952 Olympics.

Which two countries' veterans joined the British at the 1952 wheelchair games, making them international?

The event was then called the International Wheelchair Games; the ninth edition in Rome in 1960 became the first Paralympics.

How many sports were on the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic programme?

The Winter Paralympics has six, and some sports are governed by federations such as IBSA rather than the IPC.

From the Paris 2024 Games, where has every Paralympic torch relay officially begun?

Since 2012 the flame has included a 'heritage flame' lit there, giving the movement its equivalent of Olympia.