The Paralympics, which are starting in Rio with the opening ceremony and go on for 11 days, are a showcase for some of the world's most remarkable athletes. So, let the Games begin!
Image: Reuters/Pool
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The opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro's Maracana Stadium lasts three hours and the stadium will also host the closing ceremony on September 18.
There are six categories at the Paralympics; amputee athletes, Cerebral Palsy athletes, vision impaired athletes, wheelchair athletes, intellectual impairment and Les Autres - French for 'the others', which in this case is disabilities not covered by the five other categories.
Rehm's Paralympic dream
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For each sport there are various classifications to ensure fairness. These classifications are then assigned numbers and used to determine differing levels of functional ability.
The 'para' in 'Paralympics' stands for 'parallel', not 'paraplegic' as many people assume, because the Games are held parallel, or equal, to the Olympic Games.
Since 1988 the Paralympics have taken place during the same summer and at the same venue as the corresponding Olympics.
IOC chief absent
The president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach will not attend any of the Paralympics, the Games' governing body said.
Bach cancelled attending the opening ceremony at the Maracana to remain in Germany and attend the funeral of his friend Walter Scheel, the former German foreign minister and deputy chancellor, who died last month aged 97.
Putin put out
Meanwhile, Russia also on Wednesday kicked off its own event for its athletes banned from Brazil over evidence of state-run doping.
At a glitzy opening ceremony in a concert hall just outside Moscow, Russian pop stars serenaded disappointed members of the country's Paralympic team ahead of two days of competitions.
Russia's team has been barred from the Games in Rio over accusations from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that authorities in the country have masterminded and covered up drug cheating across sports.
10 things you should know about the Paralympics
A good fortnight after the Olympic Games wrapped up, the 15th edition of the Paralympics kick off in Rio de Janeiro. In some respects the Paralympics are even bigger than the Olympics. The problems promise to be similar.
Image: Getty Images/C. Rose
More events than the Olympics
The Olympics in Rio featured 306 events spread over 17 days of competition. There will be 528 events in 11 days during the Paralympics. There are 23 different sports represented, including canoeing and the triathlon, which are making their Paralympic debuts.
Image: picture alliance/Photoshot
New records
A total of 4,350 Paralympic athletes will be in Rio, almost 11 times as many as took part in the first Paralympic Games, in 1960 in Rome. Athletes from 176 countries will participate in the Games, also a new record. The International Paralympic Committee expects that a worldwide television audience of four billion people will tune in for the Games.
Image: Getty Images/B. Mendes
Confusing classifications
Paralympic athletes are grouped for competition based on 10 types of physical impairment, meaning several gold medals can be up for grabs in a single event. In London in 2012, there were 15 Paralympic gold medalists in the men's 100-meter dash. The world record in the "T43 class" is 10.57 seconds, set by Brazil's Alan Oliveira at the Paralympic Anniversary Games in London in 2013.
Image: Getty Images/B. Mendes
Technical arms race
The Paralympics are something of a technical arms race, as the athletes require much more in the way of equipment to compete than Olympic athletes do. The equipment is made up of 15,000 individual parts, including 1,100 wheelchair tires and 300 prosthetic feet. A team of 100 mechanics from 31 different countries will be on hand to make what they anticipate to be 2,000 repairs daily.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/U.Gasper
Industrialized nations at an advantage
The equipment is not cheap, and apart from the fact that disabled sports are low on the priority lists of many governments, some national sports federations can't afford to amply fund them. This is one reason why athletes from industrialized countries tend to win the most medals. The prosthesis of German long-jumper Markus Rehm, for example, costs around 8,000 euros ($8.900).
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Kyodo
Public funds
Hosting the Games is also proving to be an expensive proposition. Financially stricken Brazil has been forced to chip in around 55 million euros ($62 million) in government funds because the organizing committee had run out of money. IPC President Philip Craven described this as "the worst situation" that the Paralympic movement had ever found itself in.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Buettner
Slow ticket sales
One reason for the financial shortfall has been slow ticket sales. By the time the Olympics had ended, just 300,000 of the 2.4 million tickets for the Paralympics had been sold. Sales have picked up recently, with the IPC saying that 1.6 million have now been sold. Sales have been helped by the #FillTheSeats campaign - a drive to buy and donate tickets to young people.
Image: Getty Images/B. Mendes
Germany hopeful
The German team is sending 155 athletes to Rio, and due to the relatively generous funding for disabled sports in the country, many are thought to have good chances of winning medals. The United States leads that all-time medal table with 2,066, followed by Great Britain (1,643) and Germany(1,450).
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/K. Nietfeld
Doping casts its ugly shadow
Almost 17 percent of Paralympians surveyed as part of a study conducted by WADA a few years ago said they had used performance-enhancing substances. There are also concerns about "tech-doping" and athletes cheating on their classifications by exaggerating their handicaps. The IPC, though, has taken a stand by banning all Russian athletes due to evidence of systematic, state-sponsored doping.
Image: picture alliance / DPPI Media
Agitos
In many parts of Rio, the Olympic rings have been taken down and have been replaced by the Paralympic logo, the Agitos, which means "I move" in Latin. The Agitos has been the symbol of the Paralympics since the 2004 Games in Athens.
