1984 Summer Paralympics

VII Paralympic Games
Host city	New York, United States; Stoke Mandeville, United Kingdom
Nations participating	45 (USA); 41 (UK)
Athletes participating	1800 (USA); 1100 (UK)
Events	~300 in 15 sports (USA); 603 in 10 sports (UK)
Opening ceremony	June 17 (USA); July 22 (UK)
Closing ceremony	June 30 (USA); August 1 (UK)
Officially opened by	President Ronald Reagan (USA); Charles, Prince of Wales (UK)
Paralympic Stadium	Mitchel Athletic Complex (USA); Stoke Mandeville Stadium (UK)
Summer:
Winter:

The 1984 International Games for the Disabled, canonically the 1984 Summer Paralympics were the seventh Paralympic Games to be held. They were in fact two separate competitions - one in Stoke Mandeville, United Kingdom for wheelchair athletes with spinal cord injuries and the other at the Mitchel Athletic Complex and Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, United States of America for wheelchair and ambulatory athletes with cerebral palsy, amputees, and les autres [the others] (conditions as well as blind and visually impaired athletes). Stoke Mandeville had been the location of the Stoke Mandeville Games from 1948 onwards, seen as the precursors to the Paralympic Games.^[1] As with the 1984 Summer Olympics, the Soviet Union and other communist countries except China, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia boycotted the Paralympic Games.^[2]

These were the last Summer Paralympics not held in the venues of the Summer Olympic Games.

Preparation[edit]

The 1984 Summer Paralympics has become known as "The last minute games".^[3]^[4] These Games were originally intended to be hosted by the University of Illinois but financial problems caused the university to pull out of hosting them three months before they were set to begin, "...without doubt resulting in a setback to the disability sports movement".^[2] On short notice, Long Island and Stoke Mandeville took up the task of hosting the Games.^[5]

Sports[edit]

Competitors were divided into five disability-specific categories: amputee, cerebral palsy, visually impaired, wheelchair, and les autres (athletes with physical disabilities that had not been eligible to compete in previous Games). The wheelchair category was for those competitors who used a wheelchair due to a spinal cord disability. However some athletes in the amputee and cerebral palsy categories also competed in wheelchairs. Within the sport of athletics, a wheelchair marathon event was held for the first time. The Trails for the first wheelchair event to be held at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games was held in conjunction with the New York Games. However, despite the long and established history of using "paralympic" terminology, in the United States the US Olympic Committee prohibited the Games organizers from using the term. The seventeen contested sports are listed below, along with the disability categories which competed in each.^[6]

Archery - Cerebral palsy, wheelchair, and les autres
Athletics - All
Boccia - Cerebral palsy
Cycling - Cerebral palsy
Equestrian - Cerebral palsy
Football 7-a-side - Cerebral palsy
Goalball - Visually impaired
Lawn bowls - Amputee and wheelchair
Lifting - Amputee, cerebral palsy, wheelchair, and les autres
- Powerlifting
- Weightlifting
Shooting - Amputee, cerebral palsy, wheelchair, and les autres
Snooker - Wheelchair
Swimming - All
Table tennis - Amputee, cerebral palsy, wheelchair, and les autres
Volleyball - Amputee and les autres
Wheelchair basketball - Wheelchair and les autres
Wheelchair fencing - Wheelchair
Wrestling - Visually impaired

Medal table[edit]

The host nations, Great Britain and the United States, are highlighted.

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	United States	137	131	129	397
2	Great Britain	107	112	112	331
3	Canada	87	82	69	238
4	Sweden	83	43	34	160
5	West Germany	79	76	75	230
6	France	71	69	45	185
7	Netherlands	55	52	28	135
8	Australia	49	54	51	154
9	Poland	46	39	21	106
10	Denmark	30	13	16	59
11	Norway	29	31	30	90
12	Belgium	22	22	14	58
13	Spain	22	10	12	44
14	Ireland	20	15	31	66
15	Finland	18	14	26	58
16	Switzerland	18	13	12	43
17	Austria	14	20	10	44
18	Hungary	12	12	3	27
19	Israel	11	21	12	44
20	Yugoslavia	11	9	11	31
21	Italy	9	19	14	42
22	Japan	9	7	8	24
23	New Zealand	8	10	7	25
24	Brazil	7	17	4	28
25	Mexico	6	14	17	37
26	Portugal	4	3	7	14
27	Hong Kong	3	5	9	17
28	China	2	12	8	22
29	Trinidad and Tobago	2	0	1	3
30	Luxembourg	1	4	1	6
31	Kuwait	1	3	4	8
32	Burma	1	2	1	4
33	Egypt	1	1	5	7
34	Kenya	1	1	1	3
35	East Germany	0	3	1	4
36	Iceland	0	2	8	10
37	India	0	2	2	4
	South Korea	0	2	2	4
39	Jordan	0	1	2	3
	Zimbabwe	0	1	2	3
41	Bahamas	0	1	1	2
	Indonesia	0	1	1	2
43	Bahrain	0	0	2	2
44	Argentina	0	0	0	0
	Ecuador	0	0	0	0
	Faroe Islands	0	0	0	0
	Greece	0	0	0	0
	Guatemala	0	0	0	0
	Jamaica	0	0	0	0
	Liechtenstein	0	0	0	0
	Malta	0	0	0	0
	Papua New Guinea	0	0	0	0
	Thailand	0	0	0	0
	Venezuela	0	0	0	0
	Total (54 NPCs)	973	946	848	2767