The Paralympics Trivia
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50 free The Paralympics trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Paralympics trivia quiz covers the world's biggest sporting event for athletes with disabilities, from a hospital archery contest for paralysed war veterans in 1948 to a Games with thousands of competitors and record ticket sales. The easy questions handle the basics: where the Paralympics are held relative to the Olympics, the doctor who started it all, the city of the first official Games, what the name means, the three-coloured Agitos symbol and the two sports with no Olympic equivalent. From there it moves through the milestones: the first Winter Games in Sweden, Seoul 1988 sharing Olympic venues, the founding of the IPC in Düsseldorf and the 2001 deal that tied the two Games together for good. The harder half is for sports historians: George Eyser's wooden leg at the 1904 Olympics, the ten eligible impairment types, Trischa Zorn's 55 medals, Ragnhild Myklebust's winter record, the Spanish basketball scandal of Sydney 2000, boosting, the murderball origins of wheelchair rugby, the bells inside a goalball, Tanni Grey-Thompson's six London Marathons, Oscar Pistorius's blades and Channel 4's Superhumans. If you enjoyed our Olympics or sports history quizzes, this is the deep dive on the parallel Games. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for the Paralympic Games, the IPC, Ludwig Guttmann, the individual sports and the athletes named before publishing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Since 1988, when are the Paralympics held relative to the Olympics?
Shortly after them, in the same host city
Since the 1988 Summer Games the Paralympics have followed the Olympics in the same host city, opening shortly after them; London 2012's Paralympics opened 17 days after the Olympic closing ceremony.
Q 02The 1948 competition that grew into the Paralympics was for British war veterans with what kind of injury?
Spinal cord injuries
Spinal cord injuries: Guttmann directed the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, and the 1948 games were an archery contest between 16 paraplegic ex-servicemen and women.
Q 03Which German-Jewish neurologist, a refugee from Nazi Germany, founded the games at Stoke Mandeville Hospital?
Ludwig Guttmann
Ludwig Guttmann, a neurologist who fled Breslau for Britain in 1939, was knighted in 1966; after Kristallnacht in 1938 he admitted 64 Jewish men to his hospital and talked the Gestapo out of deporting 60 of them.
Q 04The first Stoke Mandeville Games were held on 29 July 1948, the same day as what?
The opening of the London Olympics
The opening of the London Olympics: the first Stoke Mandeville Games took place on 29 July 1948, the day the 1948 Olympic Games opened at Wembley Stadium, and Guttmann wanted a disabled equivalent of the Olympics.
Q 05In which city were the first official Paralympic Games held in 1960?
Rome
Rome staged the first Paralympics from 18 to 25 September 1960; they doubled as the ninth International Stoke Mandeville Games and were backed by INAIL, Italy's workers' accident insurance institute.
Q 06How many athletes competed at the 1960 Rome Paralympics?
400
The IPC's official figure for Rome 1960 is 400 athletes from 23 countries, all of them wheelchair users with spinal cord injuries.
Q 07Which Italian doctor, a friend and follower of Guttmann, proposed staging the 1960 Games in Rome?
Antonio Maglio
Antonio Maglio, director of INAIL's spinal unit at Ostia near Rome, persuaded Guttmann to hold the 1960 International Stoke Mandeville Games in Rome, making them the first Paralympics.
Q 08Which sport was on the programme of the 1960 Rome Paralympics?
Dartchery
Dartchery, a hybrid of darts and archery shot with a bow at a dartboard-style target, was one of eight sports at Rome 1960 alongside snooker, wheelchair fencing and table tennis.
Q 09The name 'Paralympic' was originally a portmanteau of 'Olympic' and which word?
Paraplegic
Paraplegic: the name began as a blend of 'paraplegic' and 'Olympic'; once other disability groups joined, the official explanation switched to the Greek 'pará', meaning beside or alongside.
Q 10The term 'Paralympic' first came into official use at the 1988 Games in which city?
Seoul
Seoul 1988 was the first Games officially called the Paralympics, and the first since Tokyo 1964 to be held in the Olympic host city, using the same venues.
Q 11At which Summer Paralympics were athletes with disabilities other than spinal injuries included for the first time?
Toronto 1976
Toronto 1976 was the first Summer Paralympics to admit amputees and visually impaired athletes alongside those with spinal cord injuries, with about 1,600 competitors from 40 countries.
Q 12Where were the first Winter Paralympics held in 1976?
Örnsköldsvik, Sweden
Örnsköldsvik, Sweden hosted the first Winter Paralympics in February 1976, with Alpine and Nordic skiing for amputee and visually impaired athletes plus a demonstration of ice sledge racing.
Q 13In which German city was the International Paralympic Committee founded on 22 September 1989?
Düsseldorf
Q 21Which blind American swimmer won 55 Paralympic medals between 1980 and 2004?
Trischa Zorn
Trischa Zorn, blind since birth, won 55 Paralympic swimming medals, 41 of them gold, across seven Games from Arnhem 1980 to Athens 2004.
Q 22Which Norwegian won 22 Winter Paralympic medals between 1988 and 2002?
Ragnhild Myklebust
Ragnhild Myklebust won 22 Winter Paralympic medals, 17 of them gold, in cross-country skiing, biathlon and ice sledge racing, taking five golds at Salt Lake City 2002 aged 58 before retiring.
Q 23Which country's intellectual-disability basketball team was stripped of its 2000 gold after most players were found not to be disabled?
Spain
The IPC was founded in Düsseldorf on 22 September 1989, replacing the International Co-ordinating Committee, with Canadian Robert Steadward as its first president.
Q 14Where has the International Paralympic Committee been headquartered since 1999?
Bonn, Germany
Bonn, Germany has housed the International Paralympic Committee's headquarters since 1999, when the committee moved there from Bruges in Belgium.
Q 15What is the Latin-derived name for the three asymmetrical crescents in the Paralympic symbol?
Agitos
Agitos, from the Latin 'agito' ('I move'), are the three asymmetrical crescents in red, blue and green, the colours most widely used in national flags.
Q 16The first IPC logo, created for the 1988 Games, was based on which traditional Korean decorative element?
The pa
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.
Q 17Which motto did the Paralympic movement adopt in 2019?
Change Starts with Sport
'Change Starts with Sport' became the Paralympic motto in 2019, replacing 'Spirit in Motion', which had been introduced for Athens 2004.
Q 18What is the title of the Paralympic anthem, adopted in 1996?
Hymne de l'Avenir
'Hymne de l'Avenir' (Anthem of the Future), composed by Thierry Darnis, was approved as the Paralympic anthem in March 1996; Australian Graeme Connors wrote lyrics for it in 2001.
Q 19Which single language is the official language of the Paralympic movement?
English
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.
Q 20How many eligible impairment types does the IPC recognise for Paralympic competition?
Ten
Ten: impaired muscle power, impaired passive range of movement, limb deficiency, leg length difference, short stature, hypertonia, ataxia, athetosis, vision impairment and intellectual impairment.
Spain's team was stripped of the Sydney 2000 gold after journalist-player Carlos Ribagorda revealed that ten of the twelve had no intellectual disability; ID events were dropped until London 2012.
Q 24'Boosting', a banned technique in Paralympic sport, involves athletes deliberately doing what?
Raising their blood pressure through self-harm
Trauma below a spinal injury is painless but can lift performance by up to 15%, especially in endurance events.
Q 25Which American gymnast competed at the 1904 Olympics with a wooden leg?
George Eyser
George Eyser, who lost his left leg after being run over by a train, won six gymnastics medals (three gold) at the St. Louis 1904 Olympics competing on a wooden prosthesis.
Q 26Which paraplegic New Zealand archer competed at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics?
Neroli Fairhall
Neroli Fairhall, paralysed in a motorcycle accident, shot from her wheelchair at the Los Angeles 1984 Olympics, the first paraplegic athlete to compete at an Olympic Games, four years after winning Paralympic gold at Arnhem.
Q 27By how much did Oscar Pistorius miss qualifying for the 2008 Olympic 400 metres?
0.70 seconds
0.70 seconds: Pistorius's 2008 best of 46.25 was 0.70 short of the 45.55 Olympic 'A' standard; he won Beijing Paralympic gold at 100, 200 and 400 m instead and reached the London 2012 Olympic 400 m semi-final.
Q 28Which company manufactured the carbon-fibre 'Flex-Foot Cheetah' blades Oscar Pistorius raced on?
Össur
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.
Q 29Which two Paralympic sports have no counterpart on the Olympic programme?
Boccia and goalball
Boccia and goalball are the only two Paralympic sports without an Olympic equivalent; boccia is a precision ball game akin to bowls, and goalball is a three-a-side game on a volleyball-sized court.
Q 30Boccia was originally designed for people with which condition?
Cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy: boccia was adapted for athletes with cerebral palsy and entered the Paralympics in 1984; players throw or roll red or blue leather balls towards a white jack.