The first Paralympics: An Italian sprinter, a transgender athlete and a young man from Argentina and the United States

If so, you’ll be thrilled to hear that thousands of elite athletes from around the world have converged in Paris to compete for medals across dozens of sports.

With an all-time high amount of delegations, female athletes and global broadcasters covering it, organizers are saying it is one of the best in the world.

Among the stories we’re eyeing: China, which has dominated the last five Paralympics, is looking to continue its winning streak. An Italian sprinter is set to become the first transgender woman to compete at a Paralympics. Team USA has a group of athletes who are looking to break records.

The path of the flame goes back further than that, though. The first official Paralympics were held in Rome in 1960 and 1984. The Mandeville games were retroactivelydesignated as the Paralyzed Games.

Visual impairments at the 2022 Paralympic Games: What do they tell us about the future of parasports and how to look out for them?

There are 10 eligible impairment types: eight physical (including limb deficiency and impaired muscle power), as well as vision and intellectual impairment. The degree of activity limitation resulted from the impairments determines the categories that athletes are grouped into.

The list also includes sitting volleyball, wheelchair rugby, basketball, fencing, rowing, equestrian and para triathlon.

In some sports — including para athletics, para triathlon and para cycling — visually impaired athletes compete alongside a sighted “guide” or “pilot” (some of whom are Olympians themselves). The guides have been awarded medals in the past.

That number includes the National Paralympic Committees of 167 countries, an eight-member Refugee Paralympic Team and as many as 96 neutral athletes — 88 from Russia and eight from Belarus. Athletes from those two countries are not allowed to compete under their flag following Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

They also say this year will feature a record 1,983 female competitors and more medal events — 235 — for women than ever before. The Paris Olympics have been hailed as “gender equal,” though many say there’s still room for improvement.

The flag bearer for the opening ceremony will be Steve Saio, a wheelchair basketball legend, and Nicky Nieves, a sitting volleyball star. Here are some other names to watch:

The NBC Olympics: Live coverage for 22 sports of the Paralympic Games in Paris and Milan, during the Opening Ceremony of the 2026 Winter Games

NBC says it will stream some 1,500 hours of live coverage — the most ever for a Paralympics — on Peacock throughout the course of the nearly two weeks (remember, Paris is six hours ahead of E.T.). Users that are authentic can also view the Olympics via NBC.com and the NBC Sports App.

The Olympics and Paralympics get less coverage than the Paralympics, but organizers are trying to change that. They say a record number of broadcasters are set to cover these Games, with media rights holders in more than 160 countries and territories.

The first live coverage from the 22 sports of the paralympian Games will take place in Paris. For those curious: swimming, cycling and men’s wheelchair basketball start Thursday, while track and field starts Friday. The full schedule can be found here.

Starting Thursday, it will also feature at least nine hours of programming a day — focused on the “most popular” events — on the USA Network in the mornings and afternoons.

Before long, it’ll be time for the 2026 Winter Games in Milan — but worry not, there are still plenty of compelling competitions to tide you over until then.

In the summer of 1948, Sir Ludwig Guttmann organized a sports competition involving 16 World War II veterans with spinal cord injuries, and in the hours after swimmer Léon Marchand lit the Olympic flame, two athletes lit the Paralympics flame. From there, it traveled under the English Channel and around Europe before arriving in Paris for the Paralympics opening ceremony on Wednesday.

It should be pointed out that not all classes are used in all Paralympic sports: each individual sport includes, or in some cases does not include, different classes to organize its competitions.