Paralympic Powerlifting

One of the world's fastest growing sports and certainly not for the faint hearted, Paralympic Powerlifting will be held at London's ExCeL and will showcase some of the strongest Paralympians on the planet.

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What is Paralympic Powerlifting?

Essentially a bench-press competition, Paralympic Powerlifting, having made its debut in the Tokyo 1964 Games, is one of the world's fastest-growing sports with athletes from more than 100 countries involved in international competition. The athletes have to meet a minimum eligibility criteria based on their impairment, and are then grouped by bodyweight for competition so that athletes with different impairments can compete for the same medals. There are 10 different weight categories for both men and women, who made their debut in the sport at Sydney 2000.

Who won Paralympic powerlifting gold in Beijing in 2008?

Host nation China blitzed the powerlifting competition with 9 gold medals and 14 in total. Egypt were next on the table with 4 gold and 10 medals in all - Great Britain didn’t win a single medal. 2008 was a good year for powerlifting, with 10 world records broken during the Games.

Do ParalympicsGB have a chance of winning any Powerlifting medals?

The team of Anthony Peddle, Zoe Newson, Ali Jawad, Jason Irving, Paul Efayena and Natalie Blake will be aiming to improve on their disappointing Paralympics in Beijing. Peddle is a former gold medallist in 2000 and London will be his seventh Games – a record for British Paralympians. Winning medals will be tough but with the support of a home crowd, anything is possible.

Where will the Paralympic Powerlifting take place?

The London 2012 Paralympics Powerlifting programme takes place at the ExCeL exhibition centre in the River Zone from Thursday 30th August to Wednesday 5th September. To get your bearings, take a look at our useful Paralympic venue map.

when is the Paralympic Powerlifting?

There is a seven day programme of Powerlifting events, beginning on Thursday 30th August and running through to Wednesday 5th September. There will be medal events on every day of the competition. See our Paralympics Day-by-Day Guide for the full schedule of events.

How do I get to the Paralympic powerlifting at the ExCeL?

The ExCeL Centre is located just south of the main Olympic Park, north of the River Thames and beside the Royal Victoria Dock. The most used venue outside of the Park, the ExCeL opened its doors in 2000 and is one of Europe's largest exhibition spaces. DLR stations Custom House and Prince Regent both service the ExCeL Centre and you can also access it via the brand new Emirates Air Line cable car that carries passengers across the Thames between Royal Victoria Docks and the Greenwich Peninsula.

How do I get tickets to the Paralympic Powerlifting?

Tickets can be purchased from www.tickets.london2012.com. More than 2.1 million of the 2.5 million available tickets have already been sold - organisers are claiming this could be the first Paralympics to sell out in the 52 year history of the Games. Twitter users could start following @2012TicketAlert, an unofficial feed set up during the Olympics which runs a check on the official site every three minutes and tweets every time a ticket becomes available.

What are the disability divisions for Paralympic powerlifting?

Powerlifting is open to athletes with any of the eligible physical impairments.

When was powerlifting first introduced to the Paralympics?

Men’s powerlifting made its debut in Seoul in 1988, before the women’s competition began in Sydney in 2000. A bench press competition was included in the second Paralympic Games in Tokyo 1964, exclusively open to lifters who had spinal injuries. It returned in 1988 as the competition it is today.