The 20th Paralympics: A Record-Breaking Year for Women and Girls in the United States and Beyond, and the Status of the Paris Games
If so, you’ll be thrilled to hear that thousands of elite athletes from around the world have converged in Paris to compete for medals across dozens of sports.
Organizers are already touting it as one for the record books, with an all-time high number of delegations, female athletes participating and global broadcasters covering it.
China has dominated in the last five Paralympics and is looking to continue its winning streak. An Italian sprinter is set to become the first transgender woman to compete at a Paralympics. And several highly decorated members of Team USA — including some multi-season athletes — are looking to break new records.
The Summer and Winter Olympics have been held in the same city in the last two decades, with the 1992 Winter Games being the most recent.
There are 10 eligible impairment types: eight physical (including limb deficiency and impaired muscle power), as well as vision and intellectual impairment. Athletes are grouped into categories based on the “degree of activity limitation resulting from their impairments.”
The rest of the list includes sitting volleyball; wheelchair rugby, tennis, basketball and fencing; rowing; equestrian; swimming; para triathlon and more.
Para athletics, para triathlon and para cycling involve visually impaired athletes competing with a sighted guide or pilot. Since 2012, the guides have been awarded medals, too.
The International Paralympic Committee says a record number of delegations are competing in the Games this year (they said the same of the Tokyo Games in 2021, too).
They say this year will have a new record for female competitors and more medal events for women than ever before. The Olympics in Paris have been called gender equal, though there is still room for improvement.
Spectroscopy for the Paralympics in Paris: Live TV Broadcasts, ESPN, NBC Sports and Apps
The opening ceremony flagbearers areSTEVE SIAO andNITTY NIGUES. Here are some other names to watch:
NBC will stream 1,500 hours of live coverage for the Paralympics on Peacock, which is the most ever for the event. Authenticated users can also watch via NBCParalympics.com, NBC.com, the NBC Sports App and the NBC App.
The Paralympics traditionally get less coverage and viewership than the Olympics, but organizers are working to change that. They say a record number of broadcasters are set to cover these Games, with media rights holders in more than 160 countries and territories.
Paris also marks the first Paralympic Games to offer at least some live coverage from each of the 22 sports. For those curious: swimming, cycling and men’s wheelchair basketball start Thursday, while track and field starts Friday. The full schedule can be found here.
There will be at least nine hours of programming a day on the USA Network in the mornings and afternoons.
Before long, it’ll be time for the 2026 Winter Games in Milan — but worry not, there are still plenty of compelling competitions to tide you over until then.
The flame went out for the Olympics in Paris and after that was lit by two athletes for the Paralympics in the English village ofStoke Mandeville, where 16 World War II veterans were injured. From there, it traveled under the English Channel and around Europe before arriving in Paris for the Paralympics opening ceremony on Wednesday.
Different classes in different sports aren’t always included in the organizing of the tournaments, so it’s important to point out that not all classes are used in all Paralympic sports.