PARIS (AP) — Being the successor to the Paris Olympics is no easy task, but the Paralympic Games that begin Wednesday promise to deliver their own share of memorable sporting moments.

This is an event that highlights the human ability to overcome adversity and disability. The word “insurmountable” is not something you will hear in Paris for the next two weeks, as some 4,400 athletes with a variety of life-changing disabilities compete for medals in 549 events across 22 sports.

“If it seems impossible, it is possible!” says Italian fencer Bebe Vio on her website.

She will be competing for her third consecutive gold medal in wheelchair fencing. After contracting meningitis as a child, doctors amputated both of her forearms and both legs on her knees to save her life.

Below is an overview of some of the other events that athletes compete in during the Paralympic Games and how participants are categorized based on their disability or impairment.

Which sports are practiced during the Paralympic Games?

Of the 22 Paralympic sports, only two do not have an Olympic equivalent: goalball and boccia.

Goalball is played on an indoor court the size of a volleyball court with goals on either side. Teams of partially sighted or blind players (wearing eye masks to ensure fairness) take turns rolling a ball with bells on it toward the opponent’s goal, while the defending team acts as goalkeepers.

In boccia, players learn to throw or roll balls as close as possible to a small ball, called the jack.

Other wheelchair sports include basketball, fencing, rugby and tennis.

The other sports are sitting volleyball, blind football, para-archery, athletics, badminton, canoeing, cycling, equestrian sports, judo, powerlifting, rowing, shooting, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo and triathlon.

Next to the Eiffel Tower, blindfold football is played, in which teams of five people play with a ball containing rattles.

Who can qualify to participate in the Paralympic Games?

To compete in the Paralympic Games, athletes must have “an underlying health condition that results in a permanent qualifying disability,” according to the International Paralympic Committee.

Disabilities can be caused by, for example, cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, amputations, physical injury or intellectual disability, blindness or reduced vision.

How are athletes classified?

To ensure fair competition between Paralympic athletes, athletes are classified based on the extent to which they are limited by their disability. In other words, the extent to which the disability affects their ability to compete in their chosen sport.

The classifications are intended to ensure that every competitor has a fair chance of winning and that “sporting excellence determines which athlete or team ultimately wins,” the International Paralympic Committee said.

Different types of restrictions

The Paralympics divide disability into three groups: physical, visual and intellectual. Physical disability is further divided into eight categories, including reduced muscular strength, reduced range of motion, limb deficiency and short stature.

Each Paralympic sport determines for which types of disabilities competitions are organised.

Some, such as para-athletics and para-swimming, have competitions for athletes with any type of disability, while others have only one category. Goalball, for example, is only for teams of players who are blind or partially sighted.

Assessment and sports lessons

All Paralympians undergo assessment by a panel of experts to determine which sport class they should compete in based on the degree and nature of their disability. Each sport has its own criteria for assessing the suitability of competitors. Some, such as para powerlifting, have only one sport class. Para athletics, which is open to athletes of all disabilities, has more than 50 sport classes.

The classification system focuses on grouping athletes with similar functional abilities rather than similar disabilities. This allows athletes with different disabilities to compete against each other when placed in the same sport class.

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AP Paralympic Games: https://apnews.com/hub/paralympic-games