The 1984 International Games for the Disabled, canonically the 1984 Summer Paralympics, were the seventh Paralympic Games to be held. There were two separate competitions: one in Stoke Mandeville, England, United Kingdom for wheelchair athletes with spinal cord injuries and the other at the Mitchel Athletic Complex and Hofstra University on Long Island, New York, United States 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 the 9th International Stoke Mandeville Games in Rome in 1960 are now recognised as the first Summer Paralympics. 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 Soviet Union did not participate in the Paralympics at the time, arguing that they have no disabled people in the country. The USSR made its Paralympic debut in 1988, during Perestroika.
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.
Wakako Tsuchida is an athlete from Tokyo, Japan, who is an accomplished women's wheelchair marathoner, ice sledge racer and triathlete. She was the first professional wheelchair athlete from Japan and the first Japanese athlete to win gold medals in both the Summer and Winter Paralympics. She has paraplegia.
David Holding is a British wheelchair athlete. Holding was born with spina bifida, a birth defect that affects the spinal cord, and has been in a wheelchair since childhood. An accountant by training, he competes as an amateur athlete in wheelchair races of all distances. He has won a number of races, but is most well known for being a four-time winner of the London Marathon and the former world record holder, and a Paralympic Games gold medal winner in the 100 meter wheelchair race.
Francesca Porcellato is an Italian disabled sportsperson who competed at international level in three different sports. Porcellato began her sporting career as a wheelchair racer competing in six Summer Paralympics before switching to Para Cross-country skiing where she won gold at the 2010 Winter Paralympics in the 1 km sprint. In 2015, she became six-time UCI Para-cycling World champion.
Amanda McGrory is an American wheelchair athlete.
Sandra Graf is a Swiss wheelchair athlete. Graf competes in wheelchair races of a variety of distances.
Daniel Wesley(aka Daniel Westley) is a Canadian athlete who won 12 medals while competing in the Paralympic Games.
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 until Tokyo 2020, no Salvadorian had won a Paralympic medal. In 2021, Herbert Aceituno became the first athlete to win a medal, earning bronze in powerlifting at the 59 kg category.
Edward Maalouf is a Lebanese competitive handcyclist. He is the first and only person to have won medals for Lebanon at the Paralympic Games.
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, was a German athlete. He competed in wheelchair marathons in a handcycle, and won four gold medals in marathons at the Paralympic Games - more than any other athlete. He held the record for the fastest men's marathon in his disability category, set in Berlin in 1995, in 2:23:08.
Switzerland made its Paralympic Games début at the inaugural Paralympic Games in Rome in 1960, and has participated in every edition of the Summer Paralympics. It also took part in the inaugural Winter Paralympics in 1976 in Örnsköldsvik, and has competed in every edition of the Winter Games.
Marcel Eric Hug is a Paralympic athlete from Switzerland competing in category T54 wheelchair racing events. Hug, nicknamed 'The Silver Bullet', has competed in four Summer Paralympic Games for Switzerland, winning two bronze medals in his first Games in Athens in 2004. In 2010 he set four world records in four days, and at the 2011 World Championships he won a gold in the 10,000 metres and four silver medals, losing the gold in three events to long term rival David Weir. This rivalry continued into the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, where Hug won two silvers, in the 800m and the marathon. In the 2013 World Championships Hug dominated the field, winning five golds and a silver. During the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio, Hug was one of the most consistent competitors in the T54 class, winning two golds, in the 800m and marathon, and two silvers medals, in the 1500m and 5000m.
Roger Puigbò i Verdaguer is Spanish track and field athlete. He has a disability and uses a wheelchair. He is a long-distance athlete, competing in wheelchair marathons around the world. Puigbo competed at the 2004 Summer Paralympics, 2008 Summer Paralympics, and 2012 Summer Paralympics.
The Men's marathon T52-53 was a marathon event in athletics at the 1996 Summer Paralympics, for wheelchair athletes. Franz Nietlispach and Heinz Frei finished in gold and bronze medal positions respectively for Switzerland, ensuring that Nietlispach won his first marathon title and also setting a Personal Record. Of the sixty-three starters, fifty-six reached the finish line.
Ebbe Blichfeldt is a Danish wheelchair racer living in Switzerland who has competed internationally in the Paralympic Games and other parathletic events, in the T54 classification for athletes with spinal cord injuries who compete in wheelchairs. He also works as an occupational therapist.
Switzerland 
