The Paralympic Games are a major international multi-sport event where athletes with a physical disability compete; this includes athletes with mobility disabilities, amputations, blindness, and cerebral palsy.

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There are Winter and Summer Paralympic Games, which are held immediately following their respective Olympic Games. All Paralympic Games are governed by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).

The Paralympics have grown from a small gathering of British World War II veterans in 1948 to become one of the largest international sport events by the early 21st century. Paralympians strive for equal treatment with non-disabled Olympic athletes, but there is a large funding gap between Olympic and Paralympic athletes. There are also sports, such as track and field athletics, that are resistant to Paralympians who wish to compete equally with non-disabled athletes, though there have been Paralympians who have participated in the Olympic Games.

The Paralympic Games include athletes with physical disabilities, and are run in parallel with the Olympic Games, while the IOC-recognized Special Olympics World Games include athletes with intellectual disabilities, and the Deaflympics include deaf athletes.

The present formal explanation for the name «Paralympic» is that it derives from the Greek preposition and thus refers to a competition held in parallel with the Olympic Games. The Summer Games of 1988 held in Seoul was the first time the term «Paralympic» came into official use.

Given the wide variety of disabilities that Paralympic athletes have, there are several categories in which the athletes compete. The allowable disabilities are broken down into six broad categories. The categories are amputee, cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, wheelchair, visually impaired, and Les Autres (literally «The Others», which are athletes with disabilities that do not fall into the other five categories; these include dwarfism, multiple sclerosis