Tokyo: Tokyo 2020 Paralympics opened on August 24, after a delay of pandemic throughout the year and under strict virus rules, including the prohibition of almost all spectators.
Here are some questions and answers about the game and how the event will be revealed in Tokyo: The first Paralympic match took place in 1960 in Rome, featuring only 400 athletes from 23 countries.
Paralympics’s name is intended to show events that occur in parallel, beside the Olympics.
It grew from Stoke Mandeville’s game, a tournament held in England in 1948 for 16 wheelchair athletes men and women, some of their World War II veterans.
It was the idea of Sir Ludwig Guttmann, who oversees the spinal wound unit in a hospital at Stoke Mandeville which treats veterans.
22 sports will be contested in the game, including the addition of the new Badminton and Taekwondo.
Most sports often occur in the Olympics and Paralympics, including athletics and swimming.
Some features in both games involve modifications in their form of paralympics, such as rugby wheelchairs.
Two sports, boccia, and goal, are unique to Paralympics.
Paralympiansa competes in various categories in certain sports based on their special disorders.
The Paralympic movement includes 10 types of decreases that fall widely into three categories: physical disorders, visual disorders and intellectual disorders.
Some sports are open to athletes in all categories, while others are intended for specific disorders.
In each category, athletes are assessed to see if they meet the minimum decline rate, to ensure a fair playground – even though there is controversy over several placements in recent years.
In some sports such as athletics, they are placed in certain sports classes, once again complaining about athletes with the same interference to ensure equality.
Athletes can be reclassified during their lives as a change in their situation.
Like at the Olympics, most events will take place behind closed doors to minimize the risk of infection.
Exceptions are being carried out for a program to bring school children to events, but some regions have said they will not take part because of a record of high infection reported in Japan.
Paralympian will face strict steps as long as they live, and are allowed to move between their accommodations, training sites and games.
They will be tested every day, with a positive confirmed case put in isolation and cannot compete.
Tokyo, who is the first city to host Paralympics twice, will welcome 4,400 athletes from around 160 countries and regions.
Only a week before the match, the Afghan team – consisting of two athletes para – announced they would not be able to take part due to chaos in the country.
The game will display a refugee team consisting of six athletes, including Alia Issa, the first female refugee athletes.
China has dominated the gold medal table since Athens 2004, with England often in second place and the United States and Ukraine struggled for the third.
Assistants are used by several Paralympians with visual impairments.
For example, the “runner guide” can be attached to athletes with straps on their arms or hands, but athletes must complete in front of the guide.
Some blind bicycle riders also pair up with a guide who drives ahead together and is known as a pilot.
And for visual swimmers there are “tapping” – assistants who knock on the head or body of athletes as they approach turn or finish to keep them safe.
In some sports, such as the Athletics pathway, there are several sports classes for athletes with various types of disorders that compete in one event.
For example, the Rio game displays 16 women’s 100 meter gold medals and 14 women in various classes.
Guide to Tokyo 2020 Paralympics
