Paralympics and India's Para-Athletes: History and Medals

The correct answer is B, Rome. The Games held at Rome in 1960, with about four hundred athletes from twenty-three countries, are recognised as the first Paralympic Games, and the event has been held every four years since. Option A is wrong because London is where the movement began rather than where the first Games were held: the Stoke Mandeville Games of 1948 were organised near London on the day the London Olympics opened. Option C is wrong because Tokyo hosted the second Paralympic Games in 1964 and hosted them again much later. Option D is wrong because Seoul in 1988 marks a different landmark, the first time the Paralympics were held in the same city and at the same venues as the Olympics, an arrangement that has continued since. Keep 1948 for Stoke Mandeville, 1960 for Rome and 1988 for Seoul.

The correct answer is B, Ludwig Guttmann. He was a neurologist who had left Germany for England and was put in charge of a spinal injuries unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, where he used sport as part of the treatment of soldiers paralysed in the Second World War; on 29 July 1948, the opening day of the London Olympics, he held an archery competition for sixteen injured service personnel. Option A is wrong because Pierre de Coubertin revived the modern Olympic Games in 1896 and founded the International Olympic Committee. Option C is wrong because Eunice Kennedy Shriver founded the Special Olympics in 1968, which is a separate competition for athletes with intellectual disabilities. Option D is wrong because Avery Brundage was a president of the International Olympic Committee and had no part in the Stoke Mandeville Games.

The correct answer is B, Bonn in Germany. The International Paralympic Committee was founded in 1989 as the world governing body of the movement, and it has been based at Bonn since then; it organises the Summer and Winter Paralympic Games and recognises the national Paralympic committees. Option A is wrong because Lausanne is the seat of the International Olympic Committee, and this is the commonest confusion in the question, since candidates assume the two bodies share a city. Option C is wrong because Monaco houses the headquarters of world athletics, not of the Paralympic movement. Option D is wrong because Kuala Lumpur is associated with regional sporting bodies in Asia and with the badminton federation in earlier years, not with this committee. Fix the pair as Olympic to Lausanne and Paralympic to Bonn.

The correct answer is B, Spirit in Motion. The motto was adopted along with the emblem of three Agitos, the red, blue and green curved shapes that sweep around a central point; agito is Latin for I move, and together the symbol and the motto stand for movement and for athletes converging from every direction. Option A is wrong because faster, higher, stronger is the Olympic motto, translated from the Latin citius, altius, fortius, and belongs to the other movement. Option C is wrong because sport for all is a general slogan of sports promotion used by many bodies and is not the Paralympic motto. Option D is wrong because inspire a generation was the slogan of one particular edition of the Games held in London and not the standing motto of the movement.

The correct answer is B, Murlikant Petkar. An army man wounded by bullets in the war of 1965, he took to swimming during his recovery and won the fifty metre freestyle event at the Heidelberg Games of 1972 in a world record time, giving India its first Paralympic gold medal, which remained the country’s only one for decades. Option A is wrong because Devendra Jhajharia won his first gold at Athens in 2004, thirty-two years later, and his distinction is being the first Indian with two Paralympic golds. Option C is wrong because Mariyappan Thangavelu won the high jump at Rio in 2016. Option D is wrong because Sumit Antil won the javelin at the Tokyo Games with a world record, which is a recent achievement. Remember Petkar with swimming and 1972.

The correct answer is B, Deepa Malik, who won a silver medal in the shot put at the Rio Games of 2016 and so became the first Indian woman to win a Paralympic medal of any colour; she has since received the Khel Ratna, the highest sporting award of the country. Option A is wrong because Avani Lekhara holds a different first: she is the first Indian woman to win a Paralympic gold, in the ten metre air rifle standing event at the Tokyo Games, and these two firsts are regularly swapped in options. Option C is wrong because Bhavina Patel won India’s first Paralympic medal in table tennis, a sport-specific first, at Tokyo. Option D is wrong because Sharmila Nicollet is a professional golfer and has no connection with the Paralympic Games.

The correct answer is B, the javelin throw. Jhajharia lost the use of his left arm as a child and competes in the F46 class; he won gold at the Athens Games of 2004 and again at Rio in 2016, becoming the first Indian with two Paralympic golds, and he later added a silver at Tokyo. Option A is wrong because the high jump is the event of Mariyappan Thangavelu, who won it at Rio, and of Nishad Kumar, Praveen Kumar and Sharad Kumar, who have won medals in its various classes. Option C is wrong because the shot put is the event in which Deepa Malik won her silver at Rio. Option D is wrong because the discus throw is associated with Yogesh Kathuniya among Indian medallists. Jhajharia and Sumit Antil are both javelin throwers, in different classes.

The correct answer is B, shooting. Avani Lekhara won the ten metre air rifle standing event in the SH1 class at the Tokyo Games, becoming the first Indian woman to win a Paralympic gold, and she took a second medal at the same Games in the fifty metre rifle three positions event. Option A is wrong because archery is the sport in which Harvinder Singh won India’s first Paralympic medal, a bronze at Tokyo, and archery is also where the movement itself began at Stoke Mandeville. Option C is wrong because the Indian badminton golds at Tokyo were won by Pramod Bhagat and Krishna Nagar, in the sport’s first appearance at the Games. Option D is wrong because the Indian athletics golds at Tokyo came in the javelin, won by Sumit Antil.

The correct answer is B, visual impairment. Goalball is played by two teams of three, all of them wearing eyeshades so that every player competes on the same footing, and the ball has bells inside it so that it can be tracked by sound; the hall must therefore stay silent while play is on. The sport exists only in the Paralympic programme and has no Olympic version, which is what makes it a favourite one-liner. Option A is wrong because athletes with hearing impairment compete at the Deaflympics, a separate competition first held in 1924. Option C is wrong because athletes with intellectual impairment have their own classes in some sports and their own Special Olympics. Option D is wrong because limb deficiency is unrelated to a sport designed around sound.

The correct answer is C, intellectual disabilities. The Special Olympics was founded in 1968 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver and holds its own World Games on its own calendar, separate from both the Olympics and the Paralympics. Option A is wrong because athletes with visual impairment compete at the Paralympic Games, in classes marked for the degree of sight loss, and in sports such as goalball and blind football. Option B is wrong because deaf athletes compete at the Deaflympics, organised by the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf and first held at Paris in 1924. Option D is wrong because spinal cord injury is the impairment from which the Paralympic movement itself grew at Stoke Mandeville. Learn the three names together, since the examiner tests only whether you can separate them.