PARIS – Being the successor to the Paris Olympics is no easy task, but the Paralympics, which begin Wednesday, promise to offer their own share of memorable sporting moments.

This event celebrates the human ability to overcome hardship and disability, so the word “insurmountable” will be rarely heard in Paris over the next two weeks, as some 4,400 athletes with a variety of life-affecting disabilities compete for medals in 22 sports and 549 events.

“If it seems impossible, then it is possible!” says Italian fencer Bebe Vio on her website.

She will be competing for her third consecutive gold medal in wheelchair fencing. After she contracted meningitis as a child, doctors amputated both her forearms and both her legs at the knees to save her life.

Here’s a look at some of the other events that athletes compete in at the Paralympics and how participants are categorized based on their disability or impairment:

PARALYMPIC SPORTS?

Of the 22 Paralympic sports, only two have no Olympic equivalent: goalball and bocce.

Goalball is played in a hall the size of a volleyball court with goals set up at each end. Teams of visually impaired or blind players (who wear eye masks to ensure fairness) take turns rolling a ball filled with bells toward the opposing goal, while players on the defending team act as goalkeepers.

In bocce, players throw or roll leather balls as close as possible to a small ball, the so-called target ball.

Other wheelchair sports include basketball, fencing, rugby and tennis.

Other sports include sitting volleyball, blind football, para-archery, athletics, badminton, canoeing, cycling, horse riding, judo, powerlifting, rowing, shooting, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo and triathlon.

Next to the Eiffel Tower, blind football is played in teams of five, using a ball with rattles.

WHO CAN QUALIFY?

To be able to take part in the Paralympics, athletes must “suffer from an underlying medical condition that results in a permanent disability,” explains the International Paralympic Committee.

Impairments can be caused, for example, by cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, amputations, physical injuries or mental disabilities, blindness or poor vision.

CLASSIFICATIONS?

To ensure fair competition among Paralympics participants, athletes are grouped according to how much their disability affects them – in other words, how much the disability impacts their ability to compete in their chosen sport.

The aim of the classifications is to ensure that every participant has a fair chance of winning and that “top sporting performance determines which athlete or team is ultimately victorious,” explains the International Paralympic Committee.

Types of impairment

At the Paralympics, disabilities are divided into three groups: physical, visual and mental. Physical disabilities are further divided into eight categories, including limited muscle strength, limited range of motion, limb deficiency and short stature.

Each Paralympic sport decides for itself which types of disabilities there will be competitions for.

Some sports, such as para-athletics and para-swimming, offer competitions for athletes with all types of disabilities, while others have only one category. Goalball, for example, is only for teams with blind or visually impaired players.

EVALUATION

All Paralympics competitors are assessed by a panel of experts to determine which sport class they should compete in based on the degree and type of disability they have. Each sport has its own criteria for assessing eligibility. Some, such as para powerlifting, have only one sport class. Para athletics, which is open to athletes with any disability, has more than 50 sport classes.

The focus of the classification system is on grouping athletes with similar functional abilities rather than grouping athletes with similar disabilities. This means that athletes with different impairments can compete against each other if they are placed in the same sport class.