The Paris Paralympic Games in numbers

Athletes from 184 delegations will compete for medals across 549 events.

Tom White
Wednesday 21 August 2024 01:00 EDT
The Paralympics begin in Paris on August 28 (Adam Davy/PA)
The Paralympics begin in Paris on August 28 (Adam Davy/PA) (PA Archive)

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The Paralympics descend on Paris from August 28 looking to build on a successful Olympic Games in the French capital.

Here, the PA news agency takes a statistical look at the event.

22 – sports on the schedule, with the list unchanged from Tokyo 2020.

549 – medal events.

235 – women’s medal events (43 per cent of the total), a new record and eight more than in Tokyo.

12 – duration of the Games in days, from the opening ceremony on Wednesday, August 28 to the final events and closing ceremony on Sunday, September 8.

184 – there are 182 nations competing in Paris, with the Refugee Paralympic Team and the Neutral Paralympic Athletes making for a total of 184 delegations.

10 – Paris will host the largest ever Refugee Paralympic Team, after two athletes competed at Rio 2016 and six at Tokyo 2020. The 10 members include two guide runners.

215 – team members for ParalympicsGB including guides, pilots and competition partners, 10 fewer than in Tokyo but the third-largest delegation behind China and hosts France.

46 – percentage of the GB delegation made up by female athletes – 99 to 116 male – which is the largest proportion ever.

331 – Britain’s record Paralympic medal tally, at the 1984 Games co-hosted by New York and Stoke Mandeville. It is the only time GB have won even 200 medals in a single Paralympics and included 107 golds, their only three-figure tally.

17 – Paralympic gold medals for British cyclist Dame Sarah Storey over eight previous Games – the first four appearances and five golds coming in swimming.

1988 – Paralympic debut of the Netherlands’ Jennette Jansen – four years earlier than Storey. Jansen has won 10 medals across three sports, including gold in para athletics in Seoul and para cycling at Tokyo 2020 and silver in wheelchair basketball at Atlanta 96.

2 – global competitions this summer for Brazilian table tennis player Bruna Alexandre, who became her country’s first athlete to qualify in the same cycle for both the Olympics – beaten in the last 16 of the women’s team event – and Paralympics.

55 – Trischa Zorn holds the record for the most Paralympic medals ever with 55, including 41 gold, between 1980 and 2004. Fellow American swimmer Jessica Long has the most medals of any competitor in Paris, 29, and Storey the most golds.

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