The Paralympic Games are the summit of international top-level sport for people with physical or sensorial disabilities. They are second only to the Olympichs in complexity, length and number of participants.
The participants in these Games are the best disabled athletes from the four international member federations of the International Coordinating committee of World Sports Organizations for the Disabled (ICC), the ruling body of the Paralympic Games. One of the ICC’s basic roles is to ensure the Paralympic Games are held every four years and to supervise their organisation, having exclusive rights to negotiate with the host city. The ICC has handed on its responsibility to the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), founded in 1989.
The Olympic Games and the Paralympics
The Paralympic Games have always aimed to be close to the Olympics. Organizational problems have sometimes prevented the Games from being held in the same city or even in the same countrey. Seoul’88 and Barcelona’92 -where the Olympic Games and the Paralympics were organised by the same committee– have reinforced this tendency, continued in the next editions of the Games.
(Text taken from the Official Report of the Barcelona ’92 IX Paralympic Games)
