Paralympic Swimming

Published On: Mon, Mar 7th, 2011

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Swimming is one of the most popular sports at the Paralympic Games.

Did you know?

Blind swimmers have to wear blackened goggles to ensure that competition is fair. Goggles are removed at the end of the race and checked by an official.
In all, 568 Paralympic swimmers took part in the Sydney 2000 Games.

Key facts

Venue: Aquatics Centre
Dates: Thursday 30 August – Saturday 8 September
Gold medals up for grabs: 148
Athletes: 600

The sport includes medal events in the same four strokes that feature at the Olympic Games (freestyle, backstroke, butterfly and breaststroke).

Races take place in a standard 50m pool, with swimmers starting in a variety of different ways: from a standing start, using a dive start sitting on the starting platform, and in the water.

Swimmers are classified according to their functional ability to perform each stroke. Classifications S1 to S10 cover athletes with physical disabilities; S11, S12 and S13 refer to blind athletes and those with visual impairments; and S14 is for athletes with intellectual disabilities.

Swimming at the Games

Swimming has been part of the Paralympic programme since the first Games in 1960, and now features up to 600 swimmers competing in nearly 150 medal events. The sport is one of the most popular on the Paralympic programme: at Sydney in 2000, more than 200,000 spectators attended the Swimming events over nine days of competition.

Get involved

Swimming can be enjoyed by people of all ages and abilities. To find out how to get started, contact British Swimming. For more on the sport at Paralympic level, check the website of IPC Swimming

Learn more about how to get involved on the Parasport website. You could also visit Paralympic Sport TV.

The Active Places website also allows you to search for facilities in England.

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About the Author

tony - London 2012’s ambition is to create a Games for everyone, where everyone is invited to take part, join in and enjoy the most exciting event in the world. London 2012 will create the most accessible and participative Games. It will touch people as it has never done before, stimulating people to do more and to try new things and reassess what we are all capable of. London 2012 has sport at its heart and London at the centre, but it is more than London and more than sport. It is a Games for London, the UK and the rest of the world, for sport and culture, for volunteers and business.