Sports
Competitors were divided into five disability-specific categories: amputee, cerebal 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.
- Archery - Cerebral palsy, wheelchair, and les autres
- Athletics - All
- Boccia - Cerebal palsy
- Cycling - Cerebal palsy
- Equestrian - Cerebal palsy
- Football 7-a-side - Cerebal palsy
- Goalball - Visually impaired
- Lawn bowls - Amputee and wheelchair
- Lifting - Amputee, cerebal palsy, wheelchair, and les autres
- Powerlifting
- Weightlifting
- Shooting - Amputee, cerebal palsy, wheelchair, and les autres
- Snooker - Wheelchair
- Swimming - All
- Table tennis - Amputee, cerebal palsy, wheelchair, and les autres
- Volleyball - Amputee and les autres
- Wheelchair basketball - Wheelchair and les autres
- Wheelchair fencing - Wheelchair
- Wrestling - Visually impaired
Read more about this topic: 1984 Summer Paralympics
Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“The whole idea of image is so confused. On the one hand, Madison Avenue is worried about the image of the players in a tennis tour. On the other hand, sports events are often sponsored by the makers of junk food, beer, and cigarettes. What’s the message when an athlete who works at keeping her body fit is sponsored by a sugar-filled snack that does more harm than good?”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
“In the end, I think you really only get as far as you’re allowed to get.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 87 (June 17, 1991)
“I looked so much like a guy you couldn’t tell if I was a boy or a girl. I had no hair, I wore guys’ clothes, I walked like a guy ... [ellipsis in source] I didn’t do anything right except sports. I was a social dropout, but sports was a way I could be acceptable to other kids and to my family.”
—Karen Logan (b. 1949)