Paralympic games joined the movement quite recently. It started as an activity for wheelchair veterans of the Second World War, but it gained momentum and became an annual competition known as the International Stoke Mandeville Games.

In its ninth edition in Rome in 1960 it became what we know today as the Paralympic Games. It was held a few days after the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games and included Para athletics, wheelchair basketball, Para swimming, Para table tennis, Para archery, snooker, dartchery (a combination of darts and archery) and wheelchair fencing.

Women and men participated in this first edition although participation was far from equal then and still is today. There are currently some disciplines in which women are not represented. Of the 22 Olympic sports that took place in Tokyo 2020, there was only equity in five of them. In Paris 2024, an estimated 2,200 men and 1,900 women are expected to participate. There will be 549 medal events: (271 men’s, 235 women’s and 43 mixed).

The Paralympic Games have evolved in terms of the diversity of their participants since in the beginning they only included people in wheelchairs and nowadays they include physical, intellectual, visual, cerebral palsy and brain injury. #100DaysofSummer
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