Tokyo 2020; Medal events and athlete quotas Paralympic Games (2)

Following deferment in September, the Board approved the final athletics and swimming medal event programmes for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. Having stated that triathlon would have between six and 10 medal events in Tokyo, the Board decided the sport will have eight medal events. There will be four events for men and four for women with each event featuring 10 athletes. The IPC has requested that the International Triathlon Union (ITU) selects the eight events.

A full list of the events can be found at http://bit.ly/2niMU3h.

The Tokyo 2020 Para athletics programme catering for 1,100 athletes will feature 168 medal events – nine less than Rio 2016 – and will be made up of 93 events for men and 74 for women. For the first time at a Paralympics, athletics will include a mixed gender, mixed class 4x100m relay. Made up of two men and two women, the relay team must include one athlete from the T11-13 vision impairment classes, one from either the T33-34 or T51-54 wheelchair racing classes, one from the T35-38 co-ordination impairment classes, and an athlete with a limb impairment from the T42-47 or T61-64 classes.

The athletics programme offers seven per cent more athlete slots for female athletes compared to Rio 2016.

In swimming there will be 146 medal events at Tokyo 2020 – six less than Rio 2016. These will be comprised of 76 for men, 67 for women and three mixed gender relays. Two of the mixed gender relays are new additions to the programme and are a 4x100m freestyle relays for athletes with a vision impairment and a 4x100m freestyle relay for athletes with an intellectual impairment. There will be a maximum of 620 athlete slots available for the sport and the programme includes two additional medal events for athletes with high support needs compared to Rio 2016.

Other highlights on the programme include the addition of two individual events in the S14 class for athletes with an intellectual impairment, with both the men’s and women’s 100m butterfly S14 included for the first time. The swimming event programme will have a balance stroke programme with no more than six events per class.

Andrew Parsons, IPC President, said: “Following the decisions on athletics, swimming and triathlon, the medals event programme for Tokyo 2020 is almost finalised, with just the eight triathlon medal events to be decided.

“For both athletics and swimming, we have created programmes that ensure a good cross section of events for athletes in all classes. By reducing the number of events in both sports from Rio 2016, we also aim to increase the depth of talent in each field and ensure greater long-term event viability. The addition of mixed gender relays will also enable more countries to participate.”