Disabled athletes: medical issue, fitness and biomechanics

The performances of Paralympic Athletes are now approaching the levels of non disabled athletes. The sport’s popularity is increasing. Both these issues were wonderfully represented at the Paralympic Summer Games in Sidney (2000), where 4000 disabled athletes (about 800 more than Atlanta in 1996) from 127 countries (27 more than Paralympic games of the precedent edition) and including also athletes with mental disability (mental retardation) participated in 18 sports. Cultural, social and economical reasons and scientific advances in medicine and physiology contributed to the enormous increment in the number of disabled athletes participating in sporting events occurred in the past 20 years.