Chinese domination, American progress, British and Ukrainian outsiders… Which countries are the favourites for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games?

As with the Olympics, countries dominate the Paralympic medal standings but with some differences.

Proof of the competition’s success. There will be a total of 180 delegations participating in the next Paralympic Games, which will take place in a week, from August 28 to September 8. Of the 4,400 athletes, 230 will be French in 22 different disciplines. While they hope to have as good results as their compatriots at the Olympic Games, this time the goal is not to be in the top five nations in the medal table. “We want to reach the top 8, which means doubling the number of gold medals compared to Tokyo in 2021”said Marie-Amélie Le Fur, president of the French Paralympic and Sports Committee. France is expected to have excellent Paralympic students who have performed well at previous Summer Games.

China: A Broad Domination

Unchallenged supremacy. Since 2004 and the Athens Olympics, China has not left the top spot in the Paralympic Games medal table. The country has even exceeded 200 medals since the Beijing Games in 2008. At the last Games in Tokyo, China won 207 medals, including 97 gold, 60 silver and 51 bronze. “The Paralympics have many more events than the Olympics because of the disability categories”recalls Jean Minier, sports director of the French Paralympic and Sports Committee (CPSF).

A spectacular performance in world disabled sport, given that the country has only recently developed its Paralympic sports policy. In the early 2000s, the country developed its Olympic and Paralympic strategy in preparation for the 2008 Games, which took place in Beijing. “The Paralympic Games, like the Olympic Games, are also an element of soft powerexplains the sports director of the Paralympic Committee. Countries are therefore developing strategies to be able to shine at the Paralympic Games as well as the Olympic Games in order to show the power of a nation.”

China has therefore set up a system to detect and train Paralympic athletes based on a national training centre reserved for disabled sports and 225 centres spread across the country’s provinces, explains The World. “It is said that there are about 60 million people in China with disabilities, so the French population is a possible recruitment population and there is room to find nuggets”continues Jean Minier. He warns about the “subliminal message” transmitted by China on the situation of people with disabilities in the country: “The social reality is probably much less shiny than this window would have us believe.”

Britain: the European leader

Great Britain is the main competitor of the Chinese. The British monopolize the places on the podium of the Paralympic medals table. For the Tokyo Games, “Team GB” accumulated 124 medals with 41 gold, 38 silver and 45 bronze. The results were impressive especially in swimming but also in cycling, a discipline where Sarah Storey had obtained a new gold medal. The British Paralympic athlete is the most decorated athlete in history with 17 gold medals (five times in swimming and 12 in cycling). She has already participated in eight Paralympic Games, her first participation was in Barcelona in 1992 and will be in the running in 2024.

No wonder the history of the Paralympics began in a military hospital in London’s Stoke Mandeville. The 2012 Games in the English capital will be a turning point. The stands are full with 2.7 million tickets sold. “In London, the Paralympics have come home and found the path to their future”says Sir Philip Craven, President of the International Paralympic Committee. “They were able to ride the wave of popular enthusiasm in 2012 and maintain this momentumdevelops Jean Minier. We will see if this will last, because at the Tokyo Games they were still very successful, but with a slightly older team.”

A British success in disabled sport to be qualified according to the sports director of the CPSF: “From my point of view, they have a much less efficient program than that of France for everything that is access to sports for people with disabilities in clubs. They are very efficient in bringing people to the top level, but on the other hand, to allow the greatest number of people to access a sport of their choice near their home, in good conditions of supervision when they are with disabilities, it is for me much more complex. They do not have at all the same associative system as us.”

The United States: a comeback in sight?

If we add up the results since the 1960 Paralympic Games in Rome, considered the first, the United States leads the medal standings. The Americans notably dominated the Paralympic Games for 20 years, monopolizing the first place from the Montreal Games in 1976 to those in Atlanta in 1996. But since then, the Americans have not reached second place and are sometimes just off the international podium. “We can’t say that they are lagging behindwarns Jean Minier. They are in the Top 3 of the medal table regularly. The American army has a program of recruitment and rehabilitation through sport for their wounded, who are numerous because they are in many theaters of operations.”

Can the United States challenge China for the top medal rankings at the 2024 Paris Games? In any case, Team USA is very present in the para-swimming and para-athletics events. In wheelchair basketball, the men are the two-time Paralympic champions and will try to defend their title. Results in Paralympic sports are often linked to the resources available in the countries. “Paralympism remains a rich man’s sportJean Minier emphasizes. This requires having societies in which we have sufficient means to support people with disabilities towards leisure and sport.” Many developing countries “are in much more difficulty” than during the Olympic Games “and are almost in fact excluded from all equipment sports such as wheelchair sports”.

Ukraine: a model of excellence

They came to the forefront of the media scene in Beijing in 2022. During these Winter Paralympic Games, Ukrainian athletes had excellent results, particularly in biathlon, while Russia had just invaded their country a week earlier. Because of this conflict, the IPC ultimately excluded Russian and Belarusian athletes from the competition. After considering a boycott of Paris 2024 to protest against the presence of Russian and Belarusian athletes under a neutral banner, Ukraine remains determined to defend its colors in Paris.

It is not only at the Winter Games that Ukraine cultivates excellence in the Paralympics. Ukraine has long cultivated true professionalism in supporting disabled athletes. “The country started its Paralympic development protocol in the early 1990s because the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 created an entire generation of children born with disabilities.develops Jean Minier. They have put in place a program to be able to face this human and humanitarian catastrophe. And behind it, they have put in place the necessary means to be able to achieve it.”

In terms of the medal table, the country is often in the top 10 and even on the podium in 2016 in Rio. Ukraine often finishes ahead of European countries like Italy and the Netherlands or major sporting nations like Australia. For Jean Minier, the Brazilian delegation, composed of 300 athletes and around a hundred sports coaches, is one to watch out for at these Paralympic Games. Brazil “is currently building and constructing a high-level sports policy, in the wake of the Games they organized in 2016, which I think is interesting to follow”.