What are the Paralympics?

This is the symbol of the Paralympics.

Most people know what the Olympics are, but what are the Paralympics? The Paralympics or Paralympic Games is a major international multi-sport event involving athletes with a range of disabilities; including impaired muscle power, impaired passive range of movement, limb deficiency, leg length difference, short stature, hypertonia, ataxia, athetosis, vision impairment and intellectual impairment.4 Like the Olympics, the Paralympics are in the winter and summer time and take place in the same country and city as the Olympics just a few weeks after the Olympics are over. Usually the Paralympics are not broadcasted on television as much as the Olympics but this year, NBC and some of its networks broadcasted 116 combined hours of the competitions. This is the most time that the Paralympics has been broadcasted in the United States ever.2

At one point, the Paralympics were a part of the Olympics. Athletes with disabilities competed with able bodied athletes.4 The Paralympics became a separate competition from the Olympics in the summer of 1948 in London, United Kingdom. Dr. Ludwig Guttmann wanted to create an elite sports competition for people with disabilities that would be equivalent to the Olympic Games. For the longest time, the Paralympic games were only held in the summer time until 1976. In 1976, the first Winter Paralympic Games were held in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden.4

There are similar sports between the Olympics and Paralympics; archery, canoe/kayak, cycling, equestrian, judo, rowing, sailing, shooting, soccer, swimming, table tennis, track and field, triathlon, curling, skiing and snowboarding are both in the Olympics and Paralympics. Sports that are only in the Paralympics are boccia, goalball, sitting volleyball, sled hockey, powerlifting, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair fencing, wheelchair rugby, and wheelchair tennis.3 In the following blogs I’ll be focusing on, the some of the summer sports (boccia, goalball, paracanoe, paratriathlon, sitting volleyball, soccer 7-a-side, wheelchair fencing, wheelchair rugby, and wheelchair tennis) since this year the Paralympics were hosted in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from September 7th to September 18th. I’ll be describing how athletes are chosen to do each sport by their disability, as well as, how the game is played and what equipment is used for each sport.

References

1Committee, I. P. (n.d.). Paralympic Logo.

2McFadden, T., Nichols, A., & Ruggiero, A. (n.d.). NBC TV deal monumental for Paralympic         Movement. Retrieved from paralympic.org: https://www.paralympic.org/video/nbc-tv-deal-monumental-paralympic-movement-tatyana-mcfadden-alana-nichols-angela-ruggiero

3USA, T. (2016). Sports. Retrieved from Team USA: http://www.teamusa.org/

4Wikipedia. (2016, September 7). Paralympic Games. Retrieved from Wikipedia.org: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paralympic_Games