Paralympians

Paralympians are athletes who compete in the Paralympic Games, the world's premier multi-sport event for competitors with disabilities. The term covers athletes with physical, visual, and intellectual impairments who meet sport-specific eligibility requirements and undergo a classification process to ensure fair competition across events.

The Paralympic movement grew out of postwar rehabilitation efforts led by Sir Ludwig Guttmann, with the first Stoke Mandeville Games in 1948 and the first official Paralympic Games held in Rome in 1960. The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) governs Paralympic sport and coordinates the Summer and Winter Games, which are staged in the same Olympic cycle and host city or country.

Paralympic competition spans many sports, including track and field, swimming, wheelchair basketball, para-alpine skiing, and para-snowboarding, among others. Events are organized by sport with classification systems that group athletes by functional ability, rather than impairment type, to promote parity. Eligibility and classification are sport-specific and continually refined to reflect advances in training and technology.

Paralympians have helped raise awareness of disability, advance accessibility, and broaden opportunities for elite sport among athletes with impairments. Their achievements highlight resilience and competition at the highest level while contributing to the growth of adaptive sport worldwide.