The Paralympic torch will be lit tomorrow, 24 August, in Stoke Mandeville, United Kingdom – the spiritual home of the Paralympic movement – and make its way across the English Channel to Paris in time for the Opening Ceremony.

It has been quite the journey for the Paralympic Games since Sir Ludwig Guttmann first created the Stoke Mandeville Games in 1948 for wheelchair-bound war returnees.

Discover some facts and figures you may not have known about the 2024 edition of the Summer Paralympics, which run until 8 September.

Paris 2024 Paralympics: Facts and figures about the 2024 Paralympic Games

Paralympic Games firsts

Did you know that the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony will take place outside of a stadium for the first time?

On 28 August, the Opening Ceremony will take place along the famous Parisian boulevard of the Champs-Élysées, terminating at the iconic Place de la Concorde in the centre of the French capital.

Paris’s public transport – notably its bus and urban tram networks – have undergone accessibility improvements, while all 5,288 volunteers from the City of Paris have also received disability awareness training.

There are 260 volunteers chosen to help specifically with accessibility issues.

These will be the first Summer Paralympics held in France and second Paralympic Games overall in France, after Tignes-Albertville hosted the 1992 Paralympic Winter Games.

While these are the 17th summer Paralympic Games, it will be just the 12th to be hosted in the same city that held the Olympic Games, as from 1968 to 1984 the host cities did not match.

Paris 2024 Paralympics: Facts and figures about the 2024 Paralympic Games

Events and athletes at the 2024 Paralympic Games

Did you know there are more events at the Paralympic Games than at the Olympic Games?

While there were 329 events at the recently-concluded Olympic Games Paris 2024, the Paralympics will hold a total of 549 medal events, including 164 in Para athletics and 141 in Para swimming, which are the two biggest sports.

That’s thanks to various classifications in each sport and event, resulting in different events for wheelchair users, athletes with visual impairments, various upper or lower body impairments including the use of prostheses, intellectual impairments, and others, to ensure as level a playing field as possible.

Around 4,400 athletes from 180 National Paralympic Committees are expected to compete, in addition to a Refugee Paralympic Team and Neutral Paralympic Athletes.

The Refugee Paralympic Team is made up of eight athletes and two sighted guides (who are also refugees), making this year’s team the biggest RPT yet.

And yes, the sighted guides may not have disabilities, but they are full-fledged Paralympians and can receive medals too. Brazil’s Gabriel Garcia competed as part of his country’s men’s 4x100m relay team at the Olympic Games, and will return to Paris as a sighted guide for Jerusa dos Santos.

Additionally, men can be sighted guides in women’s events and vice-versa.

The sports and venues for Paris 2024 Paralympics

The nearly 4,400 athletes will contest events in 22 sports (23 disciplines, as para cycling is split into road and track events) – a big increase from the inaugural Paralympic Games in 1960, when just eight sports were on the schedule.

In total, 16 stadium or arena venues, which were all also used during the Olympic Games, will host competitions during the Paralympics – including the most iconic ones such as the Eiffel Tower Stadium (blind football), the Grand Palais (wheelchair fencing and Para taekwondo), and the Château de Versailles (Para equestrian).

Of the 22 sports on the programme, none are new for Paris 2024. Para badminton and para taekwondo are the newest additions, having each made their debuts at the last Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

Most of the Paralympic sports have an equivalent counterpart on the Olympic programme, but two do not: boccia and goalball. Boccia is a bowls-like sport played by athletes in wheelchairs with motor impairments, while goalball has two teams of three players with visual impairments trying to roll a solid ball into the opposing goal.

There is only one artistic “judged” sport at the Summer Paralympics: Para equestrian, in the form of the Para dressage discipline.

That is also one of two sports which are fully mixed at the Paralympic Games, alongside wheelchair rugby where women play on the same teams as men (there were four women in Tokyo, including one on the gold-winning Great Britain team). Boccia, which used to be a mixed sport, is introducing gender-specific events in Paris.

Many sports are, naturally, adapted for athletes with impairments, such as the inclusion of bells in the ball in both blind football and goalball to aid the players.

But did you know that the height of the hoop in wheelchair basketball is 3.05m or 10 feet?

Yes, that’s exactly the same as in non-impaired basketball. Despite being played by athletes in wheelchairs with varying impairments, the court, backboards, and hoop all remain standard FIBA size.

The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games promises to be thrilling. Don’t miss any of the action!

Paris 2024 Paralympics: Facts and figures about the 2024 Paralympic Games