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More than a dozen para-athletes have participated in the Paralympics as well as the Olympics, the first of which was New Zealand’s Neroli Fairhall and the most famous example of which is South Africa’s ‘Blade Runner’ Oscar Pistorius. read more
 "Neroli Fairhall, Oscar Pistorius and others who have appeared in Paralympics as well as Olympics")
Multiple Paralympic gold medallist Oscar Pistorius of South Africa had participated in the men's 400m and 4x400m relay events in the 2012 London Olympics. Reuters
Paris is all set to host the Paralympics for the first time ever with the opening ceremony set to take place just a couple of days from now in the ‘City of Light’ less than a month after it hosted the Summer Olympics for the third time.
Team India had set new records in the Tokyo Games that had taken place in 2021, winning 19 medals — seven more than the total medals they had won in the Paralympics since making their debut in the 1968 Games in Tel Aviv. That included five gold medals, with four of those champions participating in the Paris Games as well, along with eight silver and six bronze medals, resulting in a 24th place finish.
Read | Sumit Antil, Avani Lekhara and other key Indian medal contenders in Paris Paralympics
As is the case with the Summer Olympics as well, USA leads the all-time medal table with a staggering 2,283 medals including 808 gold, and are followed by Great Britain and China with 1,914 and 1,237 medals respectively. Canada (1,084), Australia (1,205) and France (1,092) are some of the other nations with a 1,000-plus medals across the Paralympics.
The Paralympic Games traditionally take place right after the Olympics, with the host city hosting competitions for both events in the main Olympic stadium along with the other facilities setup for the latter.
Read | Meaning of Paralympic logo, Paralympic Movement, tournament history and more
With the two events taking place so close to one another, are there athletes who have participated in both events?
How many para-athletes have participated in the Paralympics as well as in the Olympics?
The answer to that question is 17, if one takes into account the Summer as well as Winter Olympics and Paralympics.
New Zealand’s Neroli Fairhall is the first to have achieved this feat, the wheelchair user competing in archery at the Paralympics in 1972, 1980, 1988 and 2000 and making her only appearance in the Olympics in 1984.
Fairhall had won gold in the 1980 Games besides setting a world record, and would have made her Olympic debut that year had it not been for a US-led boycott of the Moscow Olympics.
ARTICLE. Neroli Fairhall inducted to @Paralympics #archery Hall of Fame https://t.co/i96uj5x8L5 pic.twitter.com/FR3qJvfz29
— World Archery (@worldarchery) September 12, 2016Fairhall would be followed by Belgian shooter Sonja Vettenburg and American distance runner Marla Runyan. Vettenburg won gold and bronze medals in the 1984 and 1988 Paralympics and would make her Olympic debut in Barcelona 1992 in the 10m air pistol category.
Runyan, meanwhile, made history by becoming the first legally blind athlete to compete at the Olympics in Sydney 2000 after winning five gold medals across the 1992 and 1996 Paralympics. Runyan would then become the first para-athlete to compete in multiple editions of the Olympics by participating in the 2004 Athens Games as well.
Italian para-archer Paola Fantato became the first para-athlete to compete in the Olympics as well as Paralympics in the same year, just a few weeks apart from one another. Fantato achieved the feat in the 1996 Games in Atlanta, USA. While 1996 was her only appearance in the Olympics, Fantato competed in five different editions of the Paralympics — 1988, 1992, 2000 and 2004 besides 1996.
Polish table-tennis player Natalia Partyka became the first para-athlete to compete in the Olympics and Paralympics in the same year more than once — performing double duty in 2008, 2012, 2016 and in 2020.
Australia paddler Melissa Tapper would become the second para-athlete to achieve the feat, appearing in the Olympics and Paralympics in the same year in 2016 and 2020 and is set for a third double appearance this year after participating in the Paris Olympics.
Italy’s Orazio Fagone is the only para-athlete in this list competing in the Winter Games — participating in the 1988, 1992 and 1994 Olympics as a short-track speed skater before switching to sledge hockey in the Paralympics in 2006 and 2010.
The most famous examples of athletes participating in both the Olympics as well as the Paralympics would be Hungarian para-fencer Pál Szekeres and South African para-runner Oscar Pistorius.
Szekeres remains the only athlete to have medalled in both events — winning bronze at the 1988 Olympics before winning three gold and three bronze medals in six Paralympic appearances between 1992 and 2012.
Double amputee Pistorius, meanwhile, gained worldwide recognition after competing in the men’s 400-metre and 4x400m relay races in the 2012 London Olympics, especially since it’s rare to witness para-athletes taking part in Olympic track and field events.
Pistorius, who was later arrested and sentenced to prison for the murder of his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, would go as far as the semi-finals of the 400m event and would feature in the relay final.
There are also those who had competed at the Olympics first and then the Paralympics. Szekeres is the first to have achieved the feat and was followed by Croatian paddler Sandra Paović, German discus thrower Ilke Wyludda, Croatian-Austrian Equestrian athlete Pepo Puch, Canadian basketball player Misty Thomas and Israel’s Michal Feinblat — who had competed in judo in the 2004 Olympics and in para-rowing in Tokyo Paralympics.
Pepo Puch, additionally, is the only athlete to have represented different nations in the Olympics and Paralympics. He had represented Croatia in the 2004 Olympics in Equestrian for Croatia, and would switch allegiance to Austria in the 2012 and 2016 Paralympics after meeting with an accident.
Here’s the full list of athletes who have competed in the Paralympics as well as Olympics:
— Neroli Fairhall, New Zealand (Paralympics 1972, 1980, 1988, 2000, Olympics 1984)
— Sonia Vettenburg, Belgium (Paralympics 1984 & 1988, Olympics 1992)
— Paola Fantato, Italy (Paralympics 1988-2004, Olympics 1996)
— Marla Runyan, USA (Paralympics 1992 & 1996, Olympics 2000 & 2004)
— Pál Szekeres, Hungary (Paralympics 1992-2012, Olympics 1988)
—Natalia Partyka, Poland (Paralympics 2000-2016, Olympics 2008-2020)
— Natalie du Toit, South Africa (Paralympics 2004-2012, Olympics 2008)
— Oscar Pistorius, South Africa (Paralympics 2004-2012, Olympics 2012)
— Orazio Fagone, Italy (Paralympics 2006 & 2010, Olympics 1988-1994)
— Ilke Wyludda, Germany (Paralympics 2012, Olympics 1992-2000)
— Assunta Legnante, Italy (Paralympics 2012 & 2016, Olympics 2008)
— Pepo Puch, Croatia/Austria (Paralympics 2012 & 2016, Olympics 2004)
— Zahra Nemati, Iran (Paralympics 2012 & 2016, Olympics 2016)
— Melissa Tapper, Australia (Paralympics 2012-2020, Olympics 2016 & 2020)
— Sandra Paović, Croatia (Paralympics 2016, Olympics 2008)
— Bruna Alexandre, Brazil (Paralympics 2016-2024, Olympic 2024)
— Michal Feinblat, Israel (Paralympics 2020, Olympics 2004).
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