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:
<  Arnhem 1980 Seoul 1988  >
Winter:
<  Innsbruck 1984 Innsbruck 1988  >

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] Furthermore, Odeda Rosenthal, a Professor of Humanities at a local community college on Long Island and translator for the Austrian team highlighted a number of problems at the games in a series of articles.^[3] She highlighted a number of issues such as poor communication, administrative hiccups and even bus drivers not knowing the routes to scheduled events that even caused some teams to miss events completely.^[3] Rosenthal continues by slamming the work by the Police Chief claiming the Chief "took the opposite tack of anything that was suggested to sort out the mess".^[3] However, overall reports and the general impression given off by the games was a friendly atmosphere and volunteers trying their hardest under difficult conditions.^[3]

Mascot

The mascot for the 1984 Paralympic Games was Dan D. Lion, which was designed by an art teacher Maryanne McGrath Higgins.^[4]

Opening Ceremony

Patchy showers greeted the 14000 spectators packed into the Mitchel Park stadium for the 2pm start of the New York Games opening ceremony on the 19th June.^[3] New York radio personality William B. Williams introduced everyone with a welcome speech.^[3] Entertainers such as Bill Buzzeo and the Dixie Ramblers, Richie Havens, The New Image Drum and Bugle Corps, the ARC Gospel Chorus and the Square Dance Extravaganza followed the introduction speech.^[3]

Closing Ceremony

Commander Archie Cameron, President of ICC officially closed the games with a short speech acknowledging the athletes and the next host city, Seoul, South Korea. The flag of the games were then lowered and American athletes carried the flags back to the reviewing stand where they were handed over the President of the Organizing Committee, Dr William T. Callahan.^[3]

Sports

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.^[5]

• 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

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

Participating delegations

Fifty-four delegations took part in the 1984 Paralympics.^[6]

Argentina Australia Austria Bahamas Bahrain Belgium Brazil Burma Canada China Denmark East Germany Ecuador Egypt Faroe Islands Finland France Great Britain

Greece Guatemala Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kenya Kuwait Liechtenstein Luxembourg Malta

Mexico Netherlands New Zealand Norway Papua New Guinea Poland Portugal South Korea Spain Sweden Switzerland Thailand Trinidad and Tobago United States Venezuela West Germany Yugoslavia Zimbabwe

See also

• 1984 Summer Olympics
• 1984 Winter Paralympics

References

1. "2012 – The Paralympics come home", BBC, July 4, 2008
2. Bailey, Steve (2008). Athlete First: A history of the paralympic movement. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 35–26. ISBN 9780470058244.
3. Brittain, Ian (2012). From Stoke Mandeville to Stratford: A history of the Summer Paralympic Games. Illinois: Common Ground Publishing.
4. "New York 1984 Paralympic Mascot Dan D. Lion - Photos & History". www.paralympic.org. Retrieved 2015-10-16.
5. "Stoke Mandeville & New York 1984". International Paralympic Committee. 2008. Retrieved August 6, 2008.
6. "Medal Standings - New York / Stoke Mandeville 1984 Paralympic Games". International Paralympic Committee. 2008. Retrieved August 8, 2008.

External links

• International Paralympic Committee