The Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee has announced the Paralympic competition schedule, following the Games’ postponement to 2021.
Featuring 539 events across 22 sports contested at 21 venues, the Paralympic Games will take place in the Japanese capital city from 24 August – 5 September.
The first medals will be awarded on 25 August in the women’s track cycling 3,000m pursuit time trial C1-3, which will take place at the Izu Velodrome in Shizuoka prefecture.
On the same day, medallists will be decided in a total of 24 events, including 16 swimming, four wheelchair fencing and four track cycling events.
Paralympic fans will be able to enjoy watching traditional favourites like athletics and swimming events throughout; these are scheduled for all but two of the 12 days of the Games. Athletics will feature the largest number of individual events at the Games, and all athletics sessions will include finals, resulting in 167 medal events.
“The announcement of the competition schedule is always a key milestone for all Paralympic Games.” said International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Andrew Parsons.
“With just over one year to go, Para athletes can now see when they will be competing, and spectators can start to plan which events they either want to attend in person or view on television.”
Of the total 300 sessions, 109 will include medal events. Overall, events have been scheduled at family-friendly times that will allow as many people as possible to experience them. The latest sessions in 18 out of the 22 sports are scheduled to finish before or at 10 p.m. local time.
On 5 September, the closing day of the Paralympic Games, a total of 15 final events will be held in men’s and women’s marathon, badminton, men’s wheelchair basketball, women’s sitting volleyball and shooting. The last medal session of the Games will be the men’s wheelchair basketball.
