The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Athletics announced that a record 101 National Paralympic Committees (NPC) will have athletes taking part in track and field events at the 2012 London Games. A total of 1,100 athletes (740 male and 360 female) will compete in 170 medal events starting on August 30 and finishing on September 9 with the marathon, which finishes in front of Buckingham Palace on The Mall. Of the 170 track medal events in London, there are 103 for male athletes and 67 for female athletes.
China, which topped the medals table at last year’s IPC Athletics World Championships, will have the biggest delegation after it was awarded 80 slots, the maximum number an NPC could be awarded. This is followed by the United States with 54 slots, Russia with 53 slots, and Great Britain with 52 slots.
Ed Warner, chair of the IPC Athletics Sport Technical Committee, said: “It shows the growing strength and depth of the sport that a record 101 National Paralympic Committees will have athletes competing in track and field events at London 2012. This is further underlined by the fact that we had 1,782 athletes who had achieved the A Qualification Standard for the Games, despite us only having 1,100 slots available.”
The first 239 slots (146 male and 93 female) for London were allocated to National Paralympic Committees whose athletes had placed first or second in any of the individual medal events on the London 2012 Paralympic Games program at the 2011 IPC Athletics World Championships.
The London 2012 Paralympic Games will be the biggest ever with a record 4,200 athletes from 165 countries competing in 20 sports.
