Going for Gold at Paris 2024

Today marks the opening of the Paris 2024 Paralympics, which will host as many as 4,400 athletes from across the globe, competing across 549 medal events and 22 sports. Team GB will take over 200 athletes to the Paralympics and they will be competing in 19 out of the 22 sports.

Sport for athletes with an impairment or disability has existed for over a hundred years but it was after World War 2 that it became more widely introduced, with the Stoke Mandeville Games in 1948 being the first competition for wheelchair athletes. This was on a much smaller scale that the modern Paralympics, involving only 16 injured servicemen and women but it marked a significant milestone. The first Paralympic Games took place in 1960 in Rome and has taken place every 4 years since.

To compete in the Paralympics, the athletes need to suffer from a disability or impairment due to an underlying health condition or traumatic injury, which is either a physical impairment, vision impairment or intellectual impairment; examples of the types of impairments:

1. Impaired muscle power – such as from a spinal cord injury, muscular dystrophy or spina bifida;
2. Impaired range of movement – such as from arthrogryposis and contracture due to chronic joint immobilisation or traumatic injury to a joint
3. Limb deficiency – this is where there has been a total or partial amputation, whether due to traumatic injury, illness or a congenital limb deficiency
4. Leg length difference – due to either a disturbance of limb growth or as a result of a traumatic injury
5. Short stature – such as from achondroplasia, growth hormone dysfunction or osteogenesis imperfecta
6. Hypertonia (increased muscle tension/tone) – such as due to cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury or stroke
7. Ataxia (uncoordinated movements) – such as due to cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, stroke or multiple sclerosis
8. Athetosis (slow involuntary movements) –such as due to cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury or stroke

Good Luck to British Paralympians

All of the Paralympians competing today and in the past are united in their mission to prove that a disability does not prevent them from being elite level athletes and the Paralympic movement has a significant focus on inclusivity, which is something that we at Williamsons Solicitors wholeheartedly support. Good luck to Team GB and all the athletes taking part!