We’ve put together a guide with everything you need to know about this summer’s Paralympics.
Paris will stage the summer Games for the first time in 2024. It is the second time France will have hosted a Paralympics after the 1992 Winter Games in Tignes and Albertville.
About 4,400 athletes from around the world will take part in 22 sports, cheered on by crowds again after the rescheduled Tokyo Games in 2021 were held behind closed doors.
When are the Paralympics?
The Paralympics will begin with the opening ceremony on 28 August.
This will be held outside a stadium for the first time, and athletes will parade by some of Paris’ most iconic landmarks, located along the route between the Champs-Elysees and the Place de la Concorde.
Spectators can watch along the route before the official parade and formalities take place in front of ticket-holders at the Place de la Concorde.
A total of 22 gold medals will be decided on the opening day of competition on 29 August.
The final day on 8 September will feature medal events in wheelchair basketball, Para-powerlifting, Para-canoe and wheelchair marathons as well as the closing ceremony.
Which venues are being used for the Paralympics?
Many of the venues being used at the Olympics will also stage Paralympic events.
Wheelchair tennis will be at Roland Garros, the picturesque Chateau de Versailles gardens will be the venue for the Para-equestrian events, and the Stade de France will host the Para-athletics programme.
The Grand Palais, normally a venue for art and sport events, will host wheelchair fencing and Para-taekwondo, while the blind football competition will be in a specially built stadium at the foot of the iconic Eiffel Tower.
Para-triathletes will compete in the centre of Paris, with the swim leg due to take place in the River Seine.
How can I watch the Paralympics?
Channel 4 will show the Games in the UK with more than 1,300 hours of live sport airing across Channel 4, More4, Channel 4 Streaming and Channel 4 Sport’s YouTube.
How to follow the Paralympics on the BBC
BBC Radio 5 Live will have commentary and updates from key events in Paris, starting with 5 Live Drive from 16:00 BST.
There will also be programmes dedicated to the Paralympics on most evenings, usually between 20:00 and 21:00.
The BBC Sport website will have live text commentary and reports on each day of the Games.
Which sports feature at the Paralympics?
There are 22 sports in the Paralympic programme:
- Blind football
- Boccia
- Goalball
- Para-archery
- Para-athletics
- Para-badminton
- Para-canoe
- Para-cycling
- Para-equestrian
- Para-judo
- Para-powerlifting
- Para-rowing
- Para-swimming
- Para-table tennis
- Para-taekwondo
- Para-triathlon
- Shooting Para-sport
- Sitting volleyball
- Wheelchair basketball
- Wheelchair fencing
- Wheelchair rugby
- Wheelchair tennis
Which new sports are at the Paralympics?
Unlike the past two editions of the Games, where Para-triathlon and Para-canoe (Rio) and Para-taekwondo and Para-badminton (Tokyo) made their debuts, no new sports are included in the Paris programme.
However, the badminton and taekwondo programmes have been expanded and there are a record number of medal events for women.
How many gold medals will be won?
A total of 549 gold medals will be up for grabs.
Who is competing for ParalympicsGB and how many medals could they win?
ParalympicsGB will compete in 19 sports in Paris, having failed to qualify in blind football, goalball and sitting volleyball.
The GB team will feature about 213 athletes and you can find the confirmed names of who will be competing here.
Among the stars in action will be Britain’s most successful Paralympian, Sarah Storey, who is competing at a ninth Games – a British record – and will be hoping to add to her 17 gold medals.
Wheelchair tennis player Alfie Hewett will be aiming to win a first gold medal having completed a career Grand Slam by winning the Wimbledon singles title last month. Wheelchair racer Hannah Cockroft, table tennis player Will Bayley and swimmer Alice Tai will also be among those in action.
In Tokyo, Britain finished second in the medal table behind China with 124 medals, including 41 golds.
UK Sport has set a medal range of between 100 and 140 medals for the GB team.
How many nations will compete at the Paralympics?
The increase in the profile of Para-sport has meant a gradual rise in the number of nations participating in a Paralympic Games.
In Atlanta in 1996, 104 nations took part in the Games, rising to 123 four years later in Sydney and that number reached a record 164 at London 2012 before a slight drop to 159 at Rio in 2016.
At the Tokyo 2020 Games, which were held in 2021, 162 nations participated with a number missing out because of Covid-19 restrictions.
There were debut appearances for Bhutan, Grenada, Guyana, Maldives and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
It is expected that the number of nations competing in Paris will exceed the record of 164 set in London, although it will fall short of the 207 delegations who competed at the Paris Olympics.
Can athletes from Russia and Belarus compete at the Paris Paralympics?
Athletes from Russia and Belarus will be allowed to compete at the Games as neutrals.
Both nations have been suspended from Paralympic competition since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. At the following month’s Winter Paralympics in Beijing, competitors from Russia and Belarus were not allowed to take part as neutrals after the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) was criticised for originally saying they could.
In September 2023, the IPC voted to lift the full ban and partially suspend the national Paralympic committees of Russia and Belarus. That decision was criticised by some international federations, including ParalympicsGB.
Russian athletes were barred from the 2016 Rio Paralympics over historic doping allegations before athletes were able to compete under a neutral flag and using the initials of the Russian Paralympic Committee at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang and Tokyo 2020.
When did the Paralympics start?
Although what became known as the first Paralympics took place in Rome in 1960, the seeds of the Games were sown more than a decade earlier in Britain.
Sir Ludwig Guttman, a neurologist who was working with World War II veterans with spinal injuries at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, began using sport as part of the rehabilitation programmes of his patients.
In 1948, he set up a competition with other hospitals to coincide with the London Olympics and over the next decade his sporting idea was adopted by other spinal injury units in Britain.
In 1960, 400 wheelchair athletes from 23 countries came to the Italian capital to compete in 57 medal events across eight sports at the ninth Annual International Stoke Mandeville Games, now regarded as the Rome 1960 Paralympic Games.