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 to 28 September 2004. 3,806 athletes from 136 National Paralympic Committees competed. 519 medal events were held in 19 sports.
Chantal Petitclerc is a Canadian wheelchair racer and a Senator from Quebec.
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 is an Australian Paralympic wheelchair racing athlete. She has won three medals in athletics at seven Paralympics from 1996 to 2021.
David Russell Weir is a British Paralympic wheelchair athlete. He has won a total of six gold medals at the 2008 and 2012 Paralympic Games, and has won the London Marathon on eight occasions. He was born with a spinal cord transection that left him unable to use his legs.
John McFall is a British Paralympic sprinter and ESA astronaut. In November 2022, he was selected by the European Space Agency to become the first "parastronaut". ESA will do a feasibility study on him flying to space and what needs to be adapted for people with disabilities.
Great Britain competed at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, People's Republic of China. Great Britain sent a delegation of around 400, of which 212 were athletes, to compete in eighteen sports at the Games. The team was made up of athletes from the whole United Kingdom; athletes from Northern Ireland, who may elect to hold Irish citizenship under the pre-1999 article 2 of the Irish constitution, are able to be selected to represent either Great Britain or Ireland at the Paralympics. Additionally some British overseas territories compete separately from Britain in Paralympic competition.
Athletics at the 2008 Summer Paralympics were held in Beijing National Stadium from September 8 to September 17. There were 160 gold medals in this sport.
Pál Szekeres is a retired Hungarian foil and sabre fencer. He has the distinction of being the first person to have won medals at both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Mirjam de Koning is a Dutch paraplegic swimmer.
Michelle Stilwell is a Canadian athlete and politician. She represented Canada at four Summer Paralympic Games, as well as the 2015 Parapan American Games. She competed in wheelchair basketball before becoming a wheelchair racer, and is the only female Paralympic athlete to win gold medals in two separate summer sport events.
Yip Pin Xiu is a Singaporean backstroke swimmer. She is a five-time Paralympic gold medallist and 5 time World Champion, with two world records in the 50 m backstroke S2 and the 100 m backstroke S2. Yip is Singapore's most decorated Paralympian.
Tatyana McFadden is an American Paralympic athlete of Russian descent competing in the category T54. McFadden has won twenty Paralympic medals in multiple Summer Paralympic Games.
Angela Ballard is an Australian Paralympic athlete who competes in T53 wheelchair sprint events. She became a paraplegic at age 7 due to a car accident.
Hannah Lucy Cockroft is a British wheelchair racer specialising in sprint distances in the T34 classification. She holds the world records for the 100 metres, 200 metres, 400 metres, 800 metres and 1500 metres in her classification and the Paralympic records at 100 metres, 200 metres, 400 metres and 800 metres. Competing for Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Paralympics, she won two gold medals. She won three further gold medals at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Karé Adenegan is a British wheelchair athlete specialising in sprint distances in the T34 classification. She was classified as a disability athlete in 2013.
Jennifer Krempien is a former Canadian wheelchair basketball player. As a member of the Canada women's national wheelchair basketball team, Krempien won four consecutive gold medals at the Wheelchair Basketball World Championship from 1994 to 2006. During this time period, she also won three consecutive Paralympic gold medals from 1992 to 2000. After winning a bronze at the 2004 Summer Paralympics, she did not win a medal at her last Paralympic competition in 2008. Kempien was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012 and inducted into the Canadian Paralympic Committee Hall of Fame in 2013.
Diane Rakiecki is a Canadian Class 4 wheelchair racer, wheelchair basketball player and wheelchair tennis player who competed in the Paralympic Games and the World Athletics Championships. She won medals in national and regional Canadian wheelchair championships and the World Wheelchair Games. Rakiecki won the women's exhibition 800 metres wheelchair competition at the 1987 World Championships in Athletics in Rome and helped the Canada women's national wheelchair basketball team to win the bronze medal at the 1990 Wheelchair Basketball World Championship in France and the gold medal in the women's wheelchair basketball tournament at the 1992 Summer Paralympics in Barcelona. She finished second in the first ever officially recognized women's handcycle race of the New York City Marathon at the 2000 edition.
Nathan Maguire is a British wheelchair racer. He won multiple medals at both the 2018 and 2021 World Para Athletics European Championships, and also won the 400 metres mixed class race at multiple British Athletics Championships. Maguire competed in the 4 × 400 metres relay T53/T54 at the 2016 Summer Paralympics, and competed in the 400 metres T54, 800 metres T54 and mixed 4 × 100 metres relay events at the delayed 2020 Summer Paralympics. He was part of the British team that won a silver medal in the 2020 Paralympic mixed 4 × 100 metres relay. He also competed for England at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, and won the 1500 metres T54 event at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
