When the last group of the Cuban delegation that represented us in Tokyo arrives in the homeland on this day, we close this cycle by taking a look at some interesting facts about the history of the Paralympic Games, highlighted by the official site of the event.
- Sir Ludwig Guttmann was a Jewish doctor who fled Nazi Germany to England, where he opened a spinal injury center at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, and is considered the father of the Paralympic movement.
- Badminton and taekwondo made their debut in Tokyo-2020.
- Tokyo became the first city to host the Paralympic Games for the second time, after hosting them in 1964.
- Boccia and golbol are the only two sports on the Paralympic program that do not have an Olympic counterpart.
- The Swedish para-shooter Jonas Jacobsson, along with the Brazilian Daniel Dias, is the most successful male Paralympian, with 27 medals, 17 of them gold. He made his debut in the Paralympic Games in Arnhem-1980 at the age of 15, and retired after Rio-2016, at the age of 51, having competed in ten consecutive Games.
- Hungarian Pál Szekeres became the first athlete to win Olympic and Paralympic medals, after winning gold in wheelchair fencing in Barcelona-1992. He had won bronze in Seoul-1988 as a fencer, before his accident in 1991.
- The first four classified in the final of the 1,500 meters t13 of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, won by the Algerian Abdellatif Baka (3: 48.29), set faster times than the first four classified in the equivalent test of the Games Rio Olympics-2016.
- The first edition of the Stoke Mandeville Games – a precedent for the Paralympic Games – was held on July 29, 1948, with 16 injured soldiers competing in archery.
- The first edition of the Paralympic Games was that of Rome-1960, with the participation of 400 athletes from 23 countries.
- The International Paralympic Committee was founded in 1989.
- Morteza Mehrzad is the tallest Paralympic athlete. The Iranian, a sitting volleyball player and a gold medalist in Rio-2016, measures 2.46 meters, and is the second tallest man in the world.
- In air rifle shooting events, athletes shoot at a target only 0.05 cm wide, which is as large as a dot on a printed page.
- Australian Libby Kosmala, a para-thrower, was the oldest Paralympian in Rio, at 74 years old. Kosmala, now retired, competed in 12 Games, between 1972 and 2016, and won 12 medals (nine gold and three silver), in addition to a bronze in para-swimming.
- The Spanish goalkeeper Antonio Rebollo is the only Paralympic who has lit the Olympic cauldron, when he did so in the memorable Barcelona-1992 opening ceremony.
- In wheelchair tennis, the ball can bounce twice on the ground; the first must be within the limits of the court.
- In wheelchair basketball, a player can tap his wheelchair twice between a dribble, a shot, or a pass. Otherwise, it is a posting violation.
- Of the sighted soccer coaches, five stand behind the attacking goal, to direct the forwards of their team.
- The Beijing-2008 Paralympic Games served to drive the construction of more accessible infrastructure across China, for example lifts and wheelchair ramps on the Great Wall.
- In Great Britain 3.85 million people with disabilities were employed in 2018, almost a million more than before the London-2012 Paralympic Games.
- Tokyo-1964 represents the first example of the use of the term Paralympic Games in official documentation. Since Seoul-1988 both summer events were held in the same city.
- The word paralympic derives from the Greek preposition “for” (next to or next to) and from the word “Olympian.” Its meaning is that the Paralympics are the Games parallel to the Olympics and illustrates how both movements coexist.
- Para-riding is the only artistic sport on the Paralympic Games program and includes mixed dressage events (team, individual and freestyle).
- The Paralympic emblem (three Agitos) consists of three elements in red, blue and green, the three colors most represented on national flags around the world, and symbolizes movement, thus highlighting the role of the Paralympic movement in bringing athletes together from all corners of the world to compete.
- Wheelchair rugby was initially called murderball for its intensity of chair hitting.
- Canoeing debuted in Rio-2016, and for Tokyo-2020 va’a (canoe) boats were incorporated, along with kayak tests.
- The first official video game of the Paralympic Games called The Pegasus Dream Tour was presented for Tokyo-2020.
- Rising Phoenix, Netflix’s groundbreaking Paralympic film, won two Sports Emmy Awards, in the categories of Best Full-Length Sports Documentary and Best Musical Direction, and received nominations for Best Camera Work and Best Editing.
- Soccer 5 is played on a 40 mx 20 m field, with one-meter-high boards that run along both side lines, to keep the players and the ball within the field of play.
- Rwanda sent the first women’s sitting volleyball team, which represented Africa at the Rio-2016 Paralympic Games. After winning the African Championship, in 2019, they also reserved their place in Tokyo-2020.
- South African Natalie du Toit became the first amputee swimmer to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and competed in her second Paralympic Games in the same city, where she won five gold medals. Du Toit retired after London-2012, with 13 Paralympic golds.
- The Iranian shooter Sareh Javanmardi (sh1) made history by being the first woman from her country to win a gold medal in the Paralympic Games, by winning the victory in Rio-2016 in p2 (air pistol at 10 m), a title that retained in Tokyo, and p4 (mixed pistol at 50 m). Dutch paratenist Esther Vergeer retired after London-2012, with a streak of 470 matches won, dating back more than ten years and in which she won seven Paralympic golds.
- The Polish Natalia Partyka, five-time Paralympic table tennis champion, is one of the few parathletes who has also competed in the Olympic Games, in the 2008, 2012 and 2016 editions.
- Iranian goalkeeper Zahra Nemati competed in both the Paralympic and Olympic Games in 2016, becoming the first Iranian athlete and the first Asian woman to do so.
- Brazilian judo legend Antonio Tenório holds the record of having won six medals in consecutive Games (1996-2016), the first four being gold (also a record).
- Track paracycling debuted in Atlanta-1996, and road paracycling in New York / Stoke Mandeville-1984.
- Austrian rider Pepo Puch, a 2004 Olympian, had an accident in 2008 but found a way to get back on a horse and went on to win gold medals at the 2012 and 2016 Paralympic Games.
- Several Paralympic athletes are also health workers and have been at the forefront of the fight against the covid-19 pandemic. Dutch rowing champion and doctor Annika van der Meer, British tennis player and junior doctor Kim Daybell, and Venezuelan para-swimmer and doctor Génesis Leal are among those who have been training and working overtime to save lives.
- To help visually impaired people recognize the different Tokyo-2020 Paralympic medals by touch, a series of circular indentations were included on the side of the medals. One indentation represents gold, two silver, and three bronze. Braille letters spell Tokyo-2020 on the face of the medals.
- Aretha Franklin, Carly Simon, Liza Minnelli and Hall & Oates were the celebrities who performed at the opening ceremony of the 1996 Paralympic Games in Atlanta; meanwhile, Coldplay, Rihanna and Jay z performed at the closing of London-2012.
- Algeria made history at the 2016 Paralympic Games by being the first African women’s wheelchair basketball team to participate in the Games. China has been the country with the most gold medals in each edition of the Paralympic Games since Athens-2004.
