Paralympic silver medalist Pauline Ranvier.
Photo: LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP / Getty Images
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) announced in a statement that the Paralympic Games in Paris 2024 will feature a record number of medal events and places for women, as well as more competition opportunities for athletes with high support needs.
This announcement is made officially after the consultation carried out by the IPC to the different international federations, by which it has been decided that there will be a maximum of 4,400 athletes for 549 events with 22 sports medal.
The Paralympic Games in Paris will include a record 235 medal events for women, eight more than in Tokyo 2020. Apart from that increase, there will be at least 1,859 places for female athletes, 77 more than in the Japanese city.
This record number is almost double the 990 women who participated in the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games. Even so, they insist from the IPC that that number could increase since there are 339 gender-free places for the Paris Games.
At the request of many of the IPC members to increase competition opportunities for athletes with high support needs, the number of boccia medal events will grow by more than half, from seven in Tokyo to eleven in Paris. In addition, there will also be more competition opportunities for athletes with high support needs in judo and rowing.
The IPC has standardized the competition format across all five Paralympic program team sports to ensure that all events feature eight teams. This measure has created new opportunities for athletes in other sporting events and, in line with the Olympic Agenda 2020 + 5, has reduced costs for the Organizing Committee, as one less competition venue is required.
In this way, wheelchair basketball will be played with only eight teams, reducing it to four teams in the men’s category and two in the women’s category.
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