How important is the Paralympics? | Sunday Observer

How important is the Paralympics?

5 September, 2021

Paralympic Games, major international sports competition for athletes with disabilities. Comparable to the Olympic Games, the Paralympics are split into Winter Games and Summer Games, which alternately occur every two years. Many of the same Olympic events are included—such as Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, and biathlon for winter sports and cycling, archery, and swimming for summer sports—although sports equipment for the Paralympics may be modified for specific disabilities.

Since the late 20th century the Paralympics have been held in the same city that hosts the corresponding Olympic Games; the Paralympics follow shortly after the Olympics conclude.

The International Paralympic Committee, which was founded in 1989 and is based in Germany, governs the Paralympic Games.

Paralympic athletes compete in six different disability groups—amputee, cerebral palsy, visual impairment, spinal cord injuries, intellectual disability, and “les autres” (athletes whose disability does not fit into one of the other categories, including dwarfism). Within each group, athletes are further divided into classes on the basis of the type and extent of their disabilities. Individual athletes may be reclassified at later competitions if their physical status changes.

The Paralympics developed after Sir Ludwig Guttmann organized a sports competition for British World War II veterans with spinal cord injuries in England in 1948. A follow-up competition took place in 1952, with athletes from the Netherlands joining the British competitors.

In 1960 the first quadrennial Olympic-style Games for disabled athletes were held in Rome; the quadrennial Winter Games were added in 1976, in Sweden. Since the Seoul 1988 Olympic Games (and the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France), the Paralympics have been held at the Olympic venues and have used the same facilities.

In 2001 the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee agreed on the practice of “one bid, one city,” in which every city that bids to host the Olympics also bids to hold the related Paralympics.

The size and diversity of the Paralympic Games have increased greatly over the years. The Paralympics in 1960 hosted 400 athletes from 23 countries participating in eight sports. Just over 50 years later, at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, more than 4,200 athletes representing 164 countries participated in 20 sports.

Olympic Games, athletic festival that originated in ancient Greece and was revived in the late 19th century.

Before the 1970s the Games were officially limited to competitors with amateur status, but in the 1980s many events were opened to professional athletes.

African Games, also called Pan-African Games or All-Africa Games, international athletics (track-and-field) competition sponsored by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and contested by athletes representing the nations of Africa.

The African Games were first held in 1965, in Brazzaville, Congo, and consisted of contests in athletic sports exclusively. Attempts to hold such African games date back to the 1920s, and in the early 1960s “friendship” games were held, but only among formerly French-governed countries.

The second African Games were held in 1973 in Lagos, Nigeria, and the number of participating countries rose from 29 to 35. The third games were held in Algiers in 1978. The games were not held again until 1987, and thereafter they were quadrennial.

International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), track-and-field organization of national associations of more than 160 countries. It was founded as the International Amateur Athletic Association at Stockholm in 1912. In 1936 the IAAF took over regulation of women’s international track-and-field competition from the Fédération…

Olympic Games, athletic festival that originated in ancient Greece and was revived in the late 19th century. Before the 1970s the Games were officially limited to competitors with amateur status, but in the 1980s many events were opened to professional athletes.

Paralympic Games, major international sports competition for athletes with disabilities. Comparable to the Olympic Games, the Paralympics are split into Winter Games and Summer Games, which alternately occur every two years. Many of the same Olympic events are included—such as Alpine skiing

Oscar Pistorius, in full Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius, byname Blade Runner, (born November 22, 1986, Johannesburg, South Africa), South African track-and-field sprinter and bilateral below-the-knee amputee who, at the 2012 London Games, became the first amputee to compete in an Olympic track event.

He also was the first Paralympian to win a medal in open competition, when he earned a silver medal for his contribution to South Africa’s 4 × 400 relay team at the 2011 International Association of Athletics (IAAF) world championships. His athletic accomplishments were overshadowed when he was convicted of murder in 2015. Pistorius was born without a fibula bone in either of his lower legs.

His legs were amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old, and six months after that he learned to walk on fibreglass pegs. His parents, the owners of a zinc-mining business, encouraged him to participate in sports.

He played water polo and rugby in secondary school until he injured a knee in 2003 playing rugby. Pistorius began track training to rehabilitate that knee.

Shortly after obtaining his first carbon-fibre prostheses—the source of his nickname “Blade Runner”—Pistorius won the 200-metre event at the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens and claimed a bronze medal in the 100 metres.

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