International Paralympic Committee

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC; Internationales Paralympisches Komitee) is an international non-profit organisation and the global governing body for the Paralympic Movement. The IPC organizes the Paralympic Games and functions as the international federation for nine sports. Founded on 22 September 1989 in Düsseldorf, West Germany, its mission is to "enable Paralympic athletes to achieve sporting excellence and inspire and excite the world". Furthermore, the IPC aims to promote the Paralympic values and to create sport opportunities for all persons with a disability, from beginner to elite level.

The IPC has a democratic constitution and structure and is composed of representatives from 183 National Paralympic Committees (NPCs), four international organizations of sport for the disabled (IOSDs) and five regional organizations. The IPC's headquarters is located in Bonn, Germany.

Overview
On the basis of being able to organize the Paralympic Games more efficiently and to give the Paralympic movement one voice, the four international organizations of sports for the disabled, founded the International Co-ordination Committee of World Sports Organizations for the Disabled (ICC) in 1982. In the upcoming years, other organizations joined and the need for a democratically guided organization emerged, demanded by the nations participating in the Paralympic Movement. They desired a democratic structure, to improve national and regional representation, which led to the foundation of the IPC as it is known today. The 1994 Winter Paralympics, Norway, were the first to be organized by the IPC.

The IPC functions as an umbrella organization, representing several sports and disabilities, in contrast to other international sports organizations for athletes with a disability, which are predominantly limited to a single sport or disability (as well as the International Olympic Committee, who relies on separate member sanctioning bodies representing each Olympic sport).

A fifteen-member Governing Board oversees the IPC between meetings of the General Assembly. Robert D. Steadward became the first President in 1989. Since 2017, Andrew Parsons is President of the IPC.

Presidents
The International Paralympic Committee has had three presidents to date. Its founding president, who presided it from 1989 to 2001, was the Canadian Robert Steadward, who had previously founded the Canadian Sports Fund for the Physically Disabled. He was succeeded in 2001 by Philip Craven, a British Paralympian and former President of the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation, who served as president until 2017. Craven was succeeded by Brazil's Andrew Parsons, IPC Vice President from 2013 to 2017 and a former President of the Brazilian Paralympic Committee.

Governing Board
The IPC Governing Board consists of 14 members, of which 12 are elected at the General Assembly, including the President and Vice President. The most recent election for the Governing Board was held on 12 December 2021:
 * Andrew Parsons, President
 * Duane Kale, Vice President
 * Debra Alexander
 * Mohamed Alhameli
 * Jai-Jun Choung
 * Marianna Davis
 * Chelsey Gotell
 * Miki Matheson
 * Luca Pancalli
 * John Petersson
 * Majid Rashed
 * Robyn Smith

The IPC Athletes' Council Chairperson, Jitske Visser, and IPC Athletes' Council First Vice Chairperson, Josh Dueck, also have voting rights on the board.

IPC Honorary Board
The IPC has an honorary board of distinguished individuals who support the IPC's goals and use their profile to raise funds and awareness for its work.

Current honorary board members are:
 * Princess Margriet of the Netherlands
 * Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg
 * Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden
 * Prince Albert of Monaco
 * James Wolfensohn, former President of the World Bank
 * Maria Guleghina, opera singer
 * Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein
 * Thérèse Rein, Founder of Ingeus
 * Princess Astrid of Belgium.

History
Chronology of milestones in the development of the International Paralympic Committee and the Summer and Winter Paralympics.

Publications
The IPC publishes The Paralympian three times a year.

In addition, the IPC maintains an active Instagram among other social media channels to share updates.

Paralympic SPORT.TV
The Paralympics and other sport events related to the Paralympic movement are broadcast on ParalympicSportTV, an internet TV channel for Paralympic sports created by the IPC.

Paralympic Hall of Fame

 * 2006: Jouko Grip 🇫🇮, Ulla Renvall 🇸🇪, Annemie Schneider 🇩🇪
 * 2008: Connie Hansen 🇩🇰, Claudia Hengst 🇩🇪, Peter Homann 🇦🇺, André Viger 🇨🇦, Kevin McIntosh (coach) 🇦🇺
 * 2010: Tanja Kari 🇫🇮, Chris Waddell 🇺🇸, Rolf Hettich (coach) 🇩🇪
 * 2012: Louise Sauvage 🇦🇺, Trischa Zorn-Hudson 🇺🇸, Roberto Marson 🇮🇹, Frank Ponta 🇦🇺, Chris Holmes
 * 2014: Jon Kreamelmeyer 🇺🇸, Eric Villalon Fuentes 🇪🇸, Verena Bentele 🇩🇪
 * 2016: Junichi Kawai 🇯🇵, Chantal Petitclerc 🇨🇦, Franz Nietlispach 🇨🇭, Neroli Fairhall 🇳🇿, Martin Morse 🇺🇸

The Organizing Committees
In June 2001, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) signed an agreement that would ensure that the staging of the Paralympic Games is automatically included in the bid for the Olympic Games. The agreement came into effect at the 2008 Paralympic Summer Games in Beijing, and the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver.

However, the Salt Lake 2002 Organizing Committee (SLOC), chose to follow the practice of "one bid, one city" already at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City, with one Organizing Committee for both Games, which was followed up by the 2004 Games in Athens and Beijing in 2008.

The agreement was adjusted in 2003. An extension was signed in June 2006. A further extension was signed in 2012, valid until 2020. In March 2018, a historic long-term extension was signed establishing a partnership until 2032.

National Paralympic Committees (NPCs)
The NPCs receive financial support for the training and development of Paralympic teams, Paralympic athletes and Paralympic hopefuls.

International Paralympic Sports Federations (IFs)
There are 17 international federations recognized by the IPC, and there are three disability specific organizations, while the IPC has served as the international federation for multiple sports. As of 2021, the IPC governed Paralympic alpine skiing, athletics, biathlon, cross country skiing, sledge hockey (Para ice hockey), powerlifting, shooting (shooting Para sport), snowboarding, swimming, and wheelchair dancesport (Para dance sport).

On 30 November 2016, the IPC rebranded these subcommittees under the new blanket name World Para Sports to separate them from the Paralympics and their identity. It also renamed three sports to align with this new name; Paralympic shooting was renamed to "shooting Para sport" (to reduce confusion with parachuting), wheelchair dancesport became "Para dance sport" (as the committee expressed interest in governing dancesport for other classifications besides wheelchair), and sledge hockey became "Para ice hockey" (for both branding and linguistic reasons). Sports contested in the Summer Paralympics began using the new branding immediately. For winter sports, whose competitive seasons had already started by the announcement, only the world championships were immediately changed to reflect the new branding; the full switchover did not occur until the 2017–18 season.

In December 2021 during its virtual General Assembly, the IPC voted on a mandate to transfer its international governance of Paralympic sports to independent bodies by 2026. A governance review published in October 2019 found that the IPC's governance "created perceptions of conflict of interest, disparity in the application of resources, a sense of unfairness between the IPC Sports and those which are not and confusion about the IPC’s role, all of which is impacting its reputation." In July 2022, the IPC transferred governance of skiing and biathlon to the FIS and IBU respectively, and in June 2023 appointed the British Paralympic Association and UK Sport to assist in spinning off World Para Athletics and World Para Swimming as independent federations that would be based in Manchester. Para dance sport was transferred to World Abilitysport (formerly IWAS) in 2024.

World Para Athletics
Supervises and co-ordinates the World Para Athletics Championships, World Para Athletics European Championships and other competitions.
 * Official website: WorldParaAthletics.org (Paralympic.org/athletics)
 * Sport name: Para athletics
 * Former sport committee name: IPC Athletics

World Para Dance Sport
Supervises and co-ordinates the World Para Dance Sport Championships and other competitions. The rebranding saw the sport renamed from "wheelchair dance sport" to "Para dance sport" due to the IPC's desire to expand the sport beyond wheelchair users.
 * Official website: WorldParaDanceSport.org (Paralympic.org/dance-sport)
 * Sport name: Para dance sport
 * Former sport committee name: IPC Wheelchair Dance Sport

World Para Ice Hockey
Supervises and co-ordinates the World Para Ice Hockey Championships and other competitions. With the November 2016 rebranding, the official name of the sport was changed from "sledge hockey" to "Para ice hockey". This change was made upon the request of the sport's community, partly due to the word "sledge" having different meanings across languages.
 * Official website: WorldParaIceHockey.org (Paralympic.org/ice-hockey)
 * Sport name: Para ice hockey
 * Former sport committee name: IPC Ice Sledge Hockey

World Para Powerlifting
Supervises and co-ordinates the World Para Powerlifting Championships and other competitions.
 * Official website: WorldParaPowerlifting.org (Paralympic.org/powerlifting)
 * Sport name: Para powerlifting
 * Former sport committee name: IPC Powerlifting

World Shooting Para Sport
Supervises and co-ordinates the World Shooting Para Sport Championships and other competitions. The rebranding saw the sport renamed as "shooting Para sport" to avoid possible confusion with parachuting.
 * Official website: WorldShootingParaSport.org (Paralympic.org/shooting)
 * Sport name: Shooting Para sport
 * Former sport committee name: IPC Shooting

World Para Swimming
Supervises and co-ordinates the World Para Swimming Championships and other competitions.
 * Official website: WorldParaSwimming.org (Paralympic.org/swimming)
 * Sport name: Para swimming
 * Former sport committee name: IPC Swimming

The Paralympic Partner programme
The Paralympic Partner (TOP) sponsorship programme includes the following commercial sponsors of the Paralympic Games.
 * Atos
 * Bridgestone
 * Ottobock
 * Panasonic
 * Samsung
 * Toyota
 * Visa