The Parapan American Games will take place several weeks after the main event, from November 12-20, with 1,500 athletes from 26 countries competing in 13 sports.

All of the venues have been designed to accommodate athletes with disabilities and organizers hope to leave a positive legacy for disabled access in Guadalajara.

The Jalisco Family Development Agency, which has helped organize volunteers for the event, aims to use the games as a springboard to create greater public awareness of the problems faced by disabled people in Mexico.

Promotional material published ahead of the games will aim to address the many misconceptions on the subject and correct inappropriate terms used to describe people with disabilities.

The opening and closing ceremonies for the Parapan American Games will take place at the Telcel Athletics Stadium. Sports with the most events are athletics, with 141, and swimming, with 154.

Archery
Archery has been a paralympic sport since 1960 and its format is identical to that of regular archery. The sport is open to both standing and wheelchair athletes, in various states of disability. It received widespread recognition in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics when Paralympian Antonio Rebollo ignited both the Olympic and Paralympic flames with a fire arrow.

Athletics
Men and women from all disability groups compete in different classifications in paralympic athletics, some using wheelchairs or prosthetic limbs. Visually impaired athletes take part in track events with the help of a sighted guide, to whom they may be attached by a tether, while sound-emitting devices or a sighted “caller” are used to indicate important locations for throwing and jumping events.

Boccia
Similar to bocce or bowls, boccia is a wheelchair sport for people with cerebral palsy or other neurological conditions with similar effects, such as muscular dystrophy or traumatic brain injury. The aim of the game is to throw red or blue leather balls as close as possible to a white target ball, or jack, which is thrown first.

Cycling
Paralympic cycling was originally developed for blind athletes, who first competed using tandem bicycles. Technological advancements have since opened it up to a wider range of athletes, making it one of the largest disabled sports. There are two disciplines: road and track.

Five-a-side soccer
Paralympic five-a-side football is a adaptation of soccer for athletes with visual impairments including blindness. The ball is equipped with a noise-making device, enabling players to locate it by sound. Teams may use one off-pitch guide to assist in directing players and they are permitted to use non-professional sighted athletes as goalkeepers.

Goalball
Goalball is a team sport designed for blind athletes, in which teams of three try to throw a ball into their opponents’ goal. The ball is embedded with bells which competitors can use to judge its position and movement. Blindfolds allow partially sighted players to compete on an equal level with blind players. It was devised in Europe in 1946 in an effort to help in the rehabilitation of visually impaired World War II veterans.

Judo
Paralympic judo is a slightly modified adaptation of the Japanese martial art for visually impaired competitors. The major rule difference is that contests always start with the two competitors in a loose grip on each others’ Judo suits and if contact is broken a halt is called and they return to regrip in the center.

Powerlifting
Paralympic powerlifting is a benchpressing competition open to anyone with a minimum level of disability – including athletes with cerebral palsy or spinal injuries, lower-limb amputees and other disability groups – who can extend their arms within 20 degrees of full extension while lifting.

Sitting volleyball
Sitting volleyball has a smaller court and lowered net, with players compelled to have one “cheek” or an extension of the torso in contact with the floor whenever they touch the ball. The sport has traditionally been played not only by amputees and people with polio, but also others with orthopedic problems in their knees or ankles.

Swimming
One of the most popular paralympic sports, swimming involves four strokes: freestyle (essentially front crawl), backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly. Swimmers are classified according to the type and extent of their disability – be it mental, visual or physical – allowing them to compete against others with a similar level of ability.

Table tennis
Generally very similar to the regular game. A quick-fire sport slightly modified for wheelchair athletes, paralympic table tennis is open to competitors of all disabilities in different classifications. The usual rules are in effect with the only difference from regular ping pong being that serves must cross the back of the table before they cross its sides.

Wheelchair basketball
One of the biggest paralympic sports, wheelchair basketball retains most major rules of regular basketball, includng the ten-foot basketball hoop and standard court size. The main difference is in the classification of traveling: competitors may only touch their wheels twice after receiving or dribbling the ball.

Wheelchair tennis
Invented in California in 1979, wheelchair tennis is adapted for those who have disabilities in their lower bodies; the two major differences being that they use specially designed titanium wheelchairs and the ball may bounce up to two times, with the second bounce permitted outside of the court.