History UsefulNotes / ParalympicGames

-->--'''Sir Philip Craven''', during the Opening Ceremonies of the 2014 Winter Paralympics

However, what the Paralympics lose in size, they gain back with inspiring stories, an overall feel-good atmosphere, and the locals getting what is essentially the official after-party for the Games that only just ended (especially for those who couldn't afford to, or even manage to get tickets for the Olympics; in 2016, the lowest ticket price was just US$3.) Although the Olympics have always been a tough act to follow, the Paralympics have grown significantly since they were first held (per canon) in 1960; the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London were the first Paralympics to bring greater media attention (except from Creator/{{NBC}}, [[ScrewedByTheNetwork as usual]]), and an unprecedented demand for tickets. Oh, and Creator/StephenHawking and Music/{{Coldplay}} even headlined the opening and closing ceremonies too, respectively.

* V -- 1976: Toronto, Ontairo, Canada: The first to add events for amputees and the blind.

* V -- 1976: Toronto, Canada: The first to add events for amputees and the blind.

* VII -- 1984: Stoke Mandeville and Long Island: The University of Illinois was to host it, but pulled out for financial reasons just ''three'' months prior. Stoke Mandeville and Long Island jointly hosted the games; owing to its heritage and experience, Stoke Mandeville hosted the wheelchair events for athletes with spinal cord injuries.

* X -- 1996: Atlanta, United States: Officially introduced the ID class events, which brought events for those with a mental disability into the Games proper. Its mascot, a Phoenix named Blaze (which was, on the other hand, much better looking than Izzy[[note]]Blaze was also a more befitting symbol of the host city, given that Atlanta's official city seal depicts a phoenix rising from the ashes[[/note]]) became a symbol for disability sports in the U.S. following the games, even more so given that Atlanta's Paralympic legacy organization even renamed itself [=BlazeSports America=].
* XI -- 2000: Sydney, Australia: Infamous for a cheating scandal surrounding Spain[[note]]The Spanish Basketball ID team was stripped of their gold medals when an undercover reporter exposed that 10 of their 12 members were ''too smart.'' Allegedly, the Spanish Paralympic team did not administer the required IQ tests, and was intentionally letting non-disabled athletes in for other events so they could have a better chance at medals and [[OnlyInItForTheMoney sponsorship deals]]. As a result, ID events were put on hiatus until 2012; now the IPC uses "sports intelligence" tests to ensure ID-class athletes are eligible to compete. Despite the partial return of ID events, Basketball ID has never been played at the Paralympics since.[[/note]], and local folk group The Seekers finally getting to perform their signature song "The Carnival Is Over" (a local MemeticMutation for ending "special" events held in Australia) during the closing ceremony. The band missed the Olympics' closing ceremony after lead singer Judith Durham broke her hip (she wound up performing in a wheelchair).

* XVIII -- 2028: Los Angeles, USA
* XIX -- 2032: Brisbane, Australia

* VIII -- 2002: Salt Lake City, United States: 416 athletes from 36 countries. First Paralympics in North America.

* X -- 2010: Vancouver, Canada: 506 athletes from 44 countries. Viviane Forest became the first to win a gold medal at both the Summer and Winter Paralympics (she was on Canada's goalball team in 2000 and 2004), Brian [=McKeever=] ''almost'' became the first athlete to compete at both the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in the same year (he was named to both teams, but got pulled out of the Olympic Men's 50 km cross-country race by their coach), and Canada faced upset losses to Japan and Norway in the sledge hockey semi-finals and bronze medal game respectively (the U.S. would blank Japan in the finals).

* XI -- 2000: Sydney, Australia: Infamous for a cheating scandal surrounding Spain (see CheatersNeverProsper below), and local folk group The Seekers finally getting to perform their signature song "The Carnival Is Over" (a local MemeticMutation for ending "special" events held in Australia) during the closing ceremony. The band missed the Olympics' closing ceremony after lead singer Judith Durham broke her hip (she wound up performing in a wheelchair).

* X -- 2010: Vancouver, Canada: 506 athletes from 44 countries. Viviane Forest became the first to win a gold medal at both the Summer and Winter Paralympics (she was on Canada's goalball team in 2000 and 2004), Brian [=McKeever=] ''almost'' became the first athlete to compete at both the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in the same year (he was named to both teams, but got pulled out of the Olympic Men's 50 km cross-country race by their coach), and Canada faced upset losses to Japan and Denmark in the sledge hockey semi-finals and bronze medal game (the U.S. would blank Japan in the finals).

!!The Paralympics provide examples of:
* ArtificialLimbs: Not with every sport involving athletes missing a limb (e.g. the high jump) but a few (e.g. the running).
* AwesomeButImpractical: The outfits the delegation from Mauritania wore for the London 2012 opening ceremony featured tunics with ENORMOUS sleeves. They looked brilliant fluttering in the breeze... but they weren't so great for operating a wheelchair with.
* BadassBoast: In the run up to Channel 4 coverage after the 2012 Olympic Games were over they put out an advert which ended with a title card with a message for the able bodied athletes: "Thanks for ''the warm up''".
* BreakOutCharacter: Ocsar Pistorius was probably, and to some extent still is, the only Paralympian most people in the world can name, thanks to his exploits at both London 2012 games, and his not so sporting exploits afterwards. In Britain, some of the Paralympians are just as famous as their able bodied competitors. Tanni Grey-Thomson, Jonnie Peacock, Ellie Simmons and Sarah Storey are all household names in the UK, with Peacock even appearing on Series/StrictlyComeDancing. This then lead the way for other Team GB Paralympians to also appear on the show - Table Tennis player Will Bayley, and Triathlete Laurie Stedman. Stedman also appeared in the Creator/Channel4 series ''Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.''
* CharacterOverlap: Disabled athletes sometimes competed in the Olympics from time to time before the establishment of the Paralympics, but several Paralympic athletes have competed at the Olympics too. The most recent and well-known example was Oscar Pistorius, who in 2012, became the first double amputee to compete at the Summer Olympica. While having a disappointing finish in the 400 meter and 4 x 400m Relay in the Olympics, he had better success in the Paralympics, scoring Golds in the T44 400m and the T42-46 4 x 100m Relay. Pistorius was ''the'' BreakoutCharacter of the 2012 Summer Paralympics, and the heavy demand for tickets to the track and field events was partially credited to his presence.
** In 2010, Canadian goalball gold medalist Viviane Forest won gold in the Women's visually impaired Downhill, becoming the first to do so in both the Summer and Winter Paralympics.
** IPC delegates (including its president, Sir Phillip Craven) are also honorary members of the IOC. Recent Paralympics have also shared most of the same organizing staff as well.
** Former [[UsefulNotes/IndyCar CART]] champion and UsefulNotes/FormulaOne driver Alex Zanardi, who had a CareerEndingInjury at a [[UsefulNotes/IndyCar CART]] race in September 2001 (losing both his legs), took up hand-cycling as an alternative. He won the H4-class gold in the men's road time trial and road race events in 2012, which happened to be hosted on and around Brands Hatch -- a track he had actually driven before (once in the Formula 3000 series, and later in an adapted vehicle for the World Touring Car Championship). With no British riders in said events, many British fans rooted for him instead.
*** Four years later in Rio, Zanardi returned and won gold in the H5 men's time trial and mixed team relay. As a side note, the Barra Olympic Park was constructed on a site formerly occupied by the Autódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet, where Zanardi had raced during his [=IndyCar=] career and where he got his first ever pole position. (Although track cycling was held there, road cycling wasn't.)
** It is traditional for the IOC president to attend Paralympic ceremonies, although Thomas Bach broke the tradition in 2016 due to him attending a state funeral for a former West German president.
* CharacterTiers: Most prominently in athletics and swimming, athletes are given classes based off functional and medical criteria, and then participate in separate events with similarly classed competitors. In team sports such as wheelchair rugby and basketball, athletes are classified in increments of .5 (with 4.5 being the least disabled in wheelchair basketball); in the case of basketball, the total points of the five players on-court cannot be higher than 14.
* CheatersNeverProsper / ObfuscatingDisability: Alongside the typical doping incidents, there was a ''very'' awkward scandal at the 2000 Paralympics in Sydney. The Spanish Basketball ID team was stripped of their gold medals when an undercover reporter exposed that 10 of their 12 members were ''too smart.'' Allegedly, the Spanish Paralympic team did not administer the required IQ tests, and was intentionally letting non-disabled athletes in for other events so they could have a better chance at medals and [[OnlyInItForTheMoney sponsorship deals]]. As a result, ID events were put on hiatus until 2012; now the IPC uses "sports intelligence" tests to ensure ID-class athletes are eligible to compete. Despite the partial return of ID events, Basketball ID has never been played at the Paralympics since.
** In 2016, it was revealed by the World Anti-Doping Agency in spectacularly damning fashion that Russia had been engaging in a state-sponsored doping program across both the Olympics and Paralympics. The IPC confirmed that these practices, in which positive urine samples were being secretly swapped for clean ones during the drug testing of Russian athletes, was occurring during the Paralympics in Sochi (that explains all the gold medals, then!). Unlike the IOC, which allowed Russian athletes to compete if they passed a strict approval process, the IPC banned the ''entire'' Russian team from the 2016 Summer Paralympics. The IOC banned the Russian Olympic Committee from the 2018 Winter Olympics, but allowed clean Russian athletes to compete neutrally under the "Olympic Athletes from Russia" designation. The Paralympics chose to follow suit using the designation "Neutral Paralympic Athletes".
* CompetitiveBalance: Paralympic sports utilize a classification system to organize competitors based on the degree of their respective disability. For instance there are numerous categories for running in each distance because of this. Swimming also does this; though you may still see one competitor walk to the pool while the person in the next lane uses a wheelchair; it's still balanced because the person who walked will also have moderate power or control issues with their upper body, while the wheelchair user will have serious leg problems but be almost unimpaired above the waist.
** In wheelchair basketball and rugby, teams are subject to a points cap based on the classes of their players.
** In some events involving the blind, the athletes may be required to wear blindfolds so that they are all ''equally'' blind.
** Some events do not have enough competitors in a single class to allow for a separate competition. In these cases, the Paralympics use a handicap system known as a "factored time" (particularly in skiing and cycling); a percentage of the actual time is removed from a competitor's score based on their class and other factors (i.e. one competitor may have a time factor of 100%, which means that their actual time will be used, while someone with a more severe class may have a time factor of 90%, which means that their actual time will be reduced by 10%), which is used for the final standings.
* CurbStompBattle: At the 2012 Paralympics, Oscar Pistorius won his 200 m heat by several metres, breaking the World Record by almost one and a half seconds.
** In 2018, every group stage game in the Para ice hockey tournament involving Canada or the United States, with the most egregious being a 17-0 shut-out by Canada against Sweden.
** British wheelchair athlete Hannah Cockcroft was so far ahead in the T34 800 metres race at Tokyo 2020 by end of the first lap that Creator/Channel4 commentator Ronald [=McIntosh=] ended up describing it as it was like her being in a different district from everyone else. She won the gold medal by over 10 seconds from compatriot Kare Adenegan.
* DueToTheDead: The closing ceremony in Athens was dramatically cut down out of respect for the seven students who were killed in a bus crash on their way to attend the Paralympics. The entire cultural segment was replaced by a moment of silence, leaving just the entry of athletes, final speeches, the handover to Beijing (which also officially unveiled the new Paralympic emblem), and the extinguishing of the cauldron.
* FoeTossingCharge: In wheelchair rugby some of the impacts are powerful enough to lift the player on the receiving end clear off the ground and tilt the chair 90 degrees.
* GratuitousFrench: The carte blanche category "Les Autres" (literally "the others").
* GroinAttack: One of the Paralympic wheelchair fencers got stabbed right in the groin region. Unfortunately for the individual involved, while he had lost the use of his legs he very obviously hadn't lost feeling in them.
* HandicappedBadass: ''Many'' Paralympians can come across as this. Especially medal winners, ''especially'' in Judo and Fencing, which are the only martial arts in the Paralympics programme. Channel 4 in the UK has the coverage of the 2012 Paralympics, the promo for it is called ''"[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuAPPeRg3Nw Meet the superhumans]]"'', the promo emphasises this by using Music/PublicEnemy's song "Harder Than You Think" as the soundtrack. (Said song is nowadays used as the theme for ''Series/TheLastLeg'', which began as a show covering the Paralympic Games.)
** Also, players of Wheelchair Rugby, formerly known as Murderball, love the HSQ breaking brutality of the sport as a direct response to people [[DisabledMeansHelpless wanting to wrap them in cotton wool.]]
* [[ICallItVera I Call It Sally]]: British track athlete Hannah Cockroft named her wheelchair as just calling it "the chair" was "boring".
* IHaveManyNames: Until the official canonization of the Paralympic name, there was no consistent brand for the games: Tel Aviv and Rome did call them the International Stoke Mandeville Games, but Tokyo had a logo calling them "Paralympic Tokyo", Toronto called them the "[[JustForPun Torontolympiad]]", and Arnhen called them the "Olympics for the Disabled". Even though they were held after the IOC made the term official, the United States Olympic Committee (who, through the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, has exclusive rights to administer Olympics-related trademarks) blocked the use of the term "Paralympics", and forced them to be called the [[BlandNameProduct 1984 International Games for the Disabled]].
** And then, you also had the wildly differing emblems. The I.S.M.G. ''did'' have an emblem (resembling 3 wheelchair wheels linked together), but it was only really used twice. Then, the IPC went through about four different Paralympic emblems in just 20 years; starting with five tae-geuks arranged and coloured like the Olympic rings in 1984 ... until the IOC finally brought up concerns about its similarity in 1990. After rejecting a redesign with 6 tae-geuks arranged in a circle, it was simply reduced to 3 (coloured in red, green, and blue, and arranged in a triangle) for the 1994 Winter Paralympics, and then officially replaced by their current design (three arcs in red, green, and blue, representing the new Paralympic slogan "Spirit in Motion") in 2006.
* InspirationallyDisadvantaged: Some commentators are aware of this and try to avert it.
* MeaningfulName: While some may think that it refers to "paraplegia" (justifiable at first; when the term "Paralympic" was first used by Tokyo, the games were still only open to wheelchair athletes), the term "Paralympics" officially represents an event being held in parallel with the Olympic Games. With the increased IOC cooperation in recent games, this has become very accurate.
* RequiredSpinoffCrossover: During a few Olympics, Paralympic events were held as demonstration events (particularly skiing during a few Winter Olympics, and wheelchair races at the Summer; this time, they were also open to able-bodied athletes).
* ObviousRulePatch: Able-bodied athletes are just as important to the Paralympics as they are to the Olympics, primarily playing the role of guides in tandem cycling and athletics for the visually impaired, and the goalkeeper in 5-a-side football. It wasn't until 2012 that these guides also received medals when their "team" struck Gold.
** The "One city, one bid" strategy started to become prominent in 1988, when the Paralympics began to share their host city with the Olympics. It wasn't until 2000 that this actually became an official requirement in Olympic bids; hoping to ensure that Olympic organizing committees would also be responsible for the Paralympics as well.
* OnlyAFleshWound: The UK's Channel 4 ran some promos for its coverage of the 2012 Paralympics. The one about Wheelchair Rugby, originally known as ''Film/{{Murderball}}'', starts with one player stating it's a contact sport and so you will get a few "little knocks" which the players talk about ranging from skinned elbows up to ''broken ribs'', then Kylie Grimes states "I've already broken my neck, what more can I do?"
* PintsizedPowerhouse: Taken to its logical extreme in the events where athletes with Dwarfism take part.
* ProductPlacement: Unlike the Olympics, venues and jerseys ''do'' have sponsor logos on them. Still the official ones, of course.
** ProductDisplacement: Some British athletes at the 2012 games' opening ceremony had reportedly covered up logos for the IT company Atos on their ID passes, in connection to their health care division's controversial evaluation programs for workers requesting disability benefits. Other British political groups had planned out protests to coincide with the Paralympics on this fact alone.
** The 2016 closing ceremony had subtle product placement for Creator/{{Google}}; Google Translate was used for several bilingual announcements throughout.
* RefugeInAudacity: The 2012 opening ceremony included the Music/IanDuryAndTheBlockheads songs "Spasticus Autisticus" and, before a part narrated by Professor Creator/StephenHawking, "There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards". Not everyone saw the funny side.
* ScrewedByTheNetwork: Some broadcasters don't give as much coverage of the Paralympics as others in comparison to the Olympics; especially if they're also being broadcast by the same network who only just finished airing the Olympics a few weeks prior. It really depends on the popularity of disability sport. Though it's gotten so bad in some regions that even IPC president Sir Phillip Craven has noticed, promising increased scrutiny for Paralympic broadcasters at future Games.
** In America, NBC (as if it hasn't taken enough flak from critics for its Olympics coverage) has received outright ridicule from viewers and athletes for its lack of Paralympics coverage: it goes all-out for the Olympics, but sweeps the Paralympics under a rug. In fact, it was even speculated that NBC's refusal to provide decent Paralympic coverage was a factor that ruined New York City's bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics. At said games (ultimately in London), NBC Sports Network could only muster 4 hours worth of tape-delayed highlight shows in total (not even the ceremonies!) throughout the 2012 Summer Paralympics. An hour and a half of highlights also aired on NBC... ''a week after the Games ended.'' Canada got it slightly better, but made it very hard to follow; the Ceremonies aired on same-night tape delay on [=TSN2=] (followed by replays throughout the weekend on CTV and Citytv), and coverage was limited to highlight shows buried on [=TSN2=], Sportsnet One, and sometimes CTV.
** On the topic of CTV; at Vancouver's Winter Paralympics in 2010 they at least showed the opening ceremony live ... on their Vancouver station (tape-delayed to the following afternoon elsewhere), some Sledge Hockey matches (Team Canada games and the final), and the closing ceremonies live.
** NetworkToTheRescue: Creator/TheBBC (who had proclaimed itself ''The'' Olympic Broadcaster) dropped the Paralympics for 2012. But, along came a saviour: enter [[Creator/ChannelFour Channel 4]], a network historically known for airing such perplexing fare as ''Series/QueerAsFolk'', ''Series/BigBrother'', ''Series/{{Countdown}}'', and an anthology of BodyHorror documentaries, picked up the Paralympics in 2012, aiming to give them the respect they deserve (as per the mandate that Channel 4 only acquire programming and not produce it, production was outsourced to IMG Media and Tinopolis). The result? Over 150 hours of live coverage, and a multi-million dollar advertising campaign to boot. Channel Four presented 48 hours worth of coverage from Sochi in 2014, and took things UpToEleven for Rio 2016 with 500 hours.
*** NBC ''finally'' pledged to broadcast a decent amount of coverage beginning in 2014 (primarily on NBC Sports Network; though NBC aired the sledge hockey final live), and in a move that would make hell freeze over if it ever happened at an Olympics outside of the Americas, it aired the opening ceremony ''live'' (they had live programming commitments that night, but still). Ironically, CBC, while at least providing cohesive coverage that actually had a similar production to its Olympics coverage, was the one turning the Paralympics into a tape delay festival like NBC ''usually'' does.
* SoreLoser: Jody Cundy was disqualified from his Velodrome event at the London Paralympics; he was [[http://youtu.be/_X1CjlDM3P4 not]] [[http://youtu.be/nrGQySUIf_Y pleased]]. (NSFW for colourful language)
** Oscar "Blade Runner" Pistorius didn't take defeat to Alan Oliveira very well either, claiming that Alan had adjusted his blades to give him extra height and an unfair advantage.
* SpinOff: Confusingly, the Paralympics are both a spin-off of the Olympics ''and'' the Stoke Mandeville Games.
** The Stoke Mandeville Games continued on even after the advent of the first canonical Paralympics, as governed by the International Stoke Mandeville Wheelchair Sports Federation, which stayed to the original concept of being a multi-sport event for wheelchair athletes. The ISMWSF later merged with ISOD to become IWAS, while the Stoke Mandeville Games later became the World Wheelchair Games, and eventually the IWAS World Games. While IWAS is still headquartered in Stoke Mandeville, these Games have also been held elsewhere.
** Since 1999, the Pan American Games also have a Paralympic version, the Parapan Am Games. Since 2007, they have been held in the same city as the Pan Am Games much like the Paralympics. The first host city to host them as parallel events, Rio, hosted the Paralympics for real in 2016.
** The IPC also organizes world championships for several disability sports for which it serves as the international governing body, including athletics, aquatics, skiing, and Para ice hockey.
* TheCameo: During pre-show entertainment for the 2016 opening ceremony, the Olympic mascot Vinicius appeared, imitating Gisele Bündchen's runway walk from the Olympics' opening ceremony and wearing a similar looking dress.
* TheTetrisEffect: Taken literally in the Sochi closing ceremony, with ''two'' sequences paying tribute to [[VideoGame/{{Tetris}} the classic Russian falling block video puzzle game]]; one involved one of the most literal examples of Human Tetris, followed by a scene featuring a giant floating, glowing "impossible" sign built using Tetris pieces, and Alexey Chuvashev climbing a rope to kick a Z-block apostrophe into it to make it "i'm possible" (all of this to a remix of the ''Film/MissionImpossible'' theme, because why not),
* TroubledProduction: The 2016 Games showed signs of this during their lead-up: in mid-August 2016, it was revealed that the organizers had missed a payment of $8 million worth of travel grants that were supposed to have been issued at the beginning of the month. It was also revealed that the Games had already faced multiple budget cuts due to initially lukewarm ticket sales and sponsor interest (mind you, the organizers also admitted that interest tends to increase once the Olympics begin and the Paralympics draw closer) which allegedly necessitated the need for cutbacks to non-essential transport and media centres. Rio's mayor offered to bail them out, but was blocked by a court requesting the organizers' financial records before they have any more access to public funds. Craven stated that the IPC was working with organizers to help secure the needed funding, and that they wanted to absolutely avoid cuts that affect athletes and the Games themselves.
** Thankfully, the court order was lifted, and Rio's mayor was able to chip in funding on behalf of the city. Sponsorship deals were also reached with additional partners and state-owned companies, while a grassroots campaign emerged on Twitter (started by the head of marketing from London) to crowdfund tickets for local youth and disabled. After getting a ColbertBump by Music/{{Coldplay}} and surpassing its original goal of $15,000 in donations, the organizing committee and the IPC decided to step in and help back an even higher goal. After paring down the number of tickets being offered (originally 3.3 million were to be in circulation, out-doing London's 2.7) and lowering prices, the organizers were able to change their fate: as of the first weekend, the IPC stated that over 1.8 million tickets had been sold, putting Rio just ahead of Beijing in terms of overall sales.
* UnnecessaryRoughness: Wheelchair Basketball is meant to be a ''non-contact'' sport. The players seem to be largely unaware of this fact.
* YouWannaGetSued: An official Paralympic emblem debuted for 1988, consisting of five bottom-halves of Taegeuks (the symbol from the South Korean flag, similar to the yin-yang) arranged in the same layout and colours of the Olympic rings. Unfortunately, the IOC didn't seem to be happy about it; even more significant was the fact that the Paralympics' organizers had become [=BFFs=] with the IOC, so they ''really'' had to be careful.

* X -- 2010: Vancouver, Canada: 506 athletes from 44 countries. Viviane Forest became the first to win a gold medal at both the Summer and Winter Paralympics (she was on Canada's goalball team in 2000 and 2004), Brian McKeever ''almost'' became the first athlete to compete at both the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in the same year (he was named to both teams, but got pulled out of the Olympic Men's 50 km cross-country race by their coach), and Canada faced upset losses to Japan and Denmark in the sledge hockey semi-finals and bronze medal game (the U.S. would blank Japan in the finals).

!!!The Games so far

* XIX -- 2024: Brisbane, Australia