The Paralympic Games are a series of sport related events that involve athletes with different disabilities. This includes athletes that have some type of muscle impairment, have missing limbs, or lack passive range of movement. The Paralympics were organized in Rome in 1960, and the 1st Paralympic Winter Games were in Sweden.
The Paralympic Games took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The games began September 7 and ended this weekend on September 18, which means the games lasted for a total of 11 days. Some of the sports that were being used competitively were archery, swimming, and powerlifting. During the beginning of the closing ceremony, a minute of silence was asked in order to pay respects to an Iranian cyclist named Bah who had died while participating in cycling. The Paralympian crashed while going downhill. Before the athlete reached a hospital, he went into cardiac arrest and passed away soon after. In the history of the Paralympics, During the closing ceremony there were fireworks, music , and dancing. Officials from Brazil officially had to hand the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games to Tokyo.
Unfortunately, the U.S. athletes didn’t win the most medals, and actually came in fourth place. The U.S. won a total of 115 medals, and came two short of getting third place. Ukraine ended up coming in third place. Britain won the second most amount of medals. China came in first place and won a total of 239 medals, 107 of which were gold.
