The 1984 International Games for the Disabled, canonically the 1984 Summer Paralympics were the seventh Paralympic Games to be held. They were in fact two separate competitions – one in Stoke Mandeville, United Kingdom for wheelchair athletes with spinal cord injuries and the other at the Mitchel Athletic Complex and Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, United States of America for wheelchair and ambulatory athletes with cerebral palsy, amputees, and les autres [the others]. Stoke Mandeville had been the location of the Stoke Mandeville Games from 1948 onwards, seen as the precursors to the Paralympic Games. As with the 1984 Summer Olympics, the Soviet Union and other communist countries except China, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia boycotted the Paralympic Games.
The 2004 Summer Paralympics, the 12th Summer Paralympic Games, were a major international multi-sport event for athletes with disabilities governed by the International Paralympic Committee, held in Athens, Greece from 17 September to 28 September 2004. 3,806 athletes from 136 National Paralympic Committees competed. 519 medal events were held in 19 sports.
Saúl Mendoza Hernández is a former wheelchair racer, who competed at the Olympic and Paralympic levels.
Alix Louise Sauvage, OAM is an Australian paralympic wheelchair racer and leading coach.
Edith Wolf is a Swiss former wheelchair racer, who competed in the T54 classification. Wolf competed at a range of distances from 400m to marathon length events and is a multiple World and Paralympic Games winner. Wolf has also eight major marathon titles to her name having won the women's wheelchair race at the Berlin Marathon (2011), Boston Marathon and New York Marathon.
Christie Dawes née Skelton is an Australian Paralympic wheelchair racing athlete. She has won three medals in athletics at six Paralympics from 1996 to 2016.
Rochelle "Shelly" Woods is an elite British Paralympic athlete from the suburb of Layton in Blackpool, Lancashire. Woods is a T54 athlete who competes as a wheelchair racer in medium and long-distance events. She has competed in two Paralympic Games, Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012, where she won three medals. She is also a world-class marathon athlete, winning the women's elite wheelchair race at the 2007 and 2012 London Marathon.
This page contains notable highlights from the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, China.
Franz Nietlispach is a Swiss wheelchair athlete, handcyclist, and politician.
Tatyana McFadden is a Russian-born United States Paralympian athlete competing in the category T54. McFadden has won 17 Paralympic medals in multiple Summer Paralympic Games.
Heinz Frei is a Swiss wheelchair athlete. Frei has had a long career of racing, winning the London Marathon wheelchair race three times, and earning five medals at the 2003 European games at the age of 45. He has earned 15 gold medals at the summer and winter Paralympics and is a current world record holder in the half-marathon and marathon wheelchair races. He competed in athletics at every Summer Paralympic Games from 1984 to 2008, and at the 2008, 2012 and 2016 summer games he also participated in cycling, using a handcycle. At the Winter Paralympics, he competed in cross-country sit-skiing between 1984 and 2006 and in the biathlon in 1994.
El Salvador first competed in the Paralympic Games at the 2000 Summer Paralympics in Sydney, Australia. It has participated in the Summer Paralympic Games every four years since that time. El Salvador has never taken part in the Winter Paralympics, and no Salvadorian has ever won a Paralympic medal.
Marathon events have been held at the Summer Paralympic Games, for both men and women, since the 1984 Summer Paralympics in Stoke Mandeville and New York City. They are held as part of the Paralympic athletics programme.
Heinrich Köberle, born in 1946, is a German athlete. He competes in wheelchair marathons in a handcycle, and has won four gold medals in marathons at the Paralympic Games - more than any other athlete. He holds the record for the fastest men's marathon in his disability category, set in Berlin in 1995, in 2:23:08.
Madison de Rozario is an Australian Paralympic athlete. At the 2016 Rio Paralympics, she won two silver medals. She has won two gold medals at the World Para Athletics Championships.
Richard Nicholson is an Australian Paralympic powerlifter and athlete. He has competed at five successive Paralympic Games from the 1996 to 2012 Summer Paralympics. At the 2000 Games, he won a silver medal in the powerlifting Men's Up to 60 kg event. In athletics, at the 2004 Athens Paralympics he won a silver medal in the Men's 4 × 100 m T53–54 event and at the 2012 London Paralympics a bronze medal in the Men's 4 × 400 m T53–54 event.
Gregory Stephen "Greg" Smith, OAM is an Australian Paralympic athlete and wheelchair rugby player who won three gold medals in athletics at the 2000 Summer Paralympics, and a gold medal in wheelchair rugby at the 2012 Summer Paralympics, where he was the flag bearer at the opening ceremony.
Jake Lappin is an Australian wheelchair athletics competitor. He represented Australia in athletics at the 2012 Summer Paralympics but did not medal. He represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics.
Men's marathon races for wheelchair athletes at the 2004 Summer Paralympics followed a course from Marathon to the Panathinaiko Stadium, and started at 08:00 on 26 September. Events were held in three wheelchair disability classes, together with two classes of visually impaired athletes.
Mauritius sent a delegation to compete at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7–18 September 2016. This was the fifth time the country had taken part in a Paralympic Games after its debut at the 1996 Summer Paralympics. The Mauritian delegation to Rio de Janeiro consisted of two athletes: wheelchair racer Brandy Perrine and short-distance swimmer Scody Victor. The nation's best result was tenth overall by Perrine in the women's 100 metres T54 event as both competitors did not progress to the final in their respective competitions.
