The global reality of the Paralympic Movement: Challenges and opportunities in disability sports

Abstract The purpose of this study was to briefly illustrate some of the challenges and realities of national and international Paralympic sports. The elite disabled athlete paradigm is still not widely known in the world of regular sports competitions. The winning elite disabled athletes are restricted to a few countries, including the U.S., Canada, Germany, China, and Australia, with limited distribution of disability sport opportunities in other countries. This tendency for the success of a minority of countries reflects global problems of social vulnerability in accessibility (e.g., in dis...