Key result
Paralympic medal events stabilize, remaining steady since 1992 for Summer and 2006 for Winter Games.
Why the study?
To chart how changes in the number of medal events relate to changes in the number of sport events and classes during the Paralympic Games between 1960 and 2018.
Observational
The number of medal events during the Paralympic Games has stabilized after an initial increase and subsequent decrease, reflecting a balance between fairness and prestige.
May guide sustainable Paralympic programming; leaves open impacts on athlete inclusion and equity.
Purpose To chart how changes in the number of medal events relate to changes in the number of sport events and classes during the Paralympic Games (PG) between 1960 and 2018. Methods Web-scraping was used to extract information from the website of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) on all unique medal events, sport events, and classes per PG, which were then accumulated per sport to descriptively identify and further explore changes. Results The increased number of medal events during the early Summer Games (SG) (1960–1984: 113–975) and Winter Games (WG) (1976–1994: 55–113) was primarily due to an increased number of classes and sport events. While this suggested an increased sports participation among athletes with disabilities, it made the PG difficult to organize. A decrease in the number of medal events subsequently occurred during the SG (1984–1992: 975–489) and WG (1994–2006: 133–58). This was mainly achieved by reducing the number of sport events in the larger sports. Following this decline phase, the number of medal events and sport events has remained relatively stable for both editions of the PG, though this was achieved through different strategies. The WG employed the time-factor system for all individual sports, which enabled competitions across classes within sport events and thus, award a single gold medal (one medal event) for several classes. The SG have maintained the number of medal events despite a slight increase in classes (112–181). This was due to some sports combining classes in the same event, while others excluded certain classes from certain sport events. Conclusions The number of medal events during each PG appear to be closely related to the number of sport events and, partially, to the number of classes. The stability in the number of medal events may indicate that a balance has been achieved, where there currently are enough classes and sport events to ensure fairness, while also maintaining a level of prestigiousness for winning a medal. However, it remains to be seen whether this stability will last or if the continued growth of the PG with more athletes and countries will warrant changes in the number of medal events.
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Baumgart et al. (2022) conducted an observational in Paralympic athletes. Paralympic Games organization was evaluated on Number of medal events, sport events, and classes. The number of medal events during the Paralympic Games initially increased, then decreased, and has remained relatively stable since 1992 for Summer Games and 2006 for Winter Games.
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