| Great Britain at the Paralympic Games | ||||||||||
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At the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London
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| Competitors | ||||||||||
| Medals | Gold 0 |
Silver 0 |
Bronze 0 |
Total 0 |
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| Paralympic history (summary) | ||||||||||
| Summer Games | ||||||||||
| 1960 • 1964 • 1968 • 1972 • 1976 • 1980 • 1984 • 1988 • 1992 • 1996 • 2000 • 2004 • 2008 • 2012 | ||||||||||
| Winter Games | ||||||||||
| 1976 • 1980 • 1984 • 1988 • 1992 • 1994 • 1998 • 2002 • 2006 • 2010 | ||||||||||
Great Britain is scheduled to compete at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, United Kingdom from August 19 to September 9, 2012 as the host nation.
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Despite the team being made up of athletes from the whole United Kingdom they compete under the name of Great Britain, a name first assigned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the 1908 Summer Olympics along with the IOC country code GBR, and later used by the International Paralympic Committee for the Paralympic Games. The team is also referred to as "Team GB".[1] Representatives of the devolved Northern Ireland government have objected to the name, which they argue creates a perception that Northern Ireland is not part of the British team, and have called for the team to be renamed as Team UK.[2][3] Additionally some British overseas territories compete separately from Britain in Paralympic competition (e.g. Bermuda).
Every participant at the Paralympics has their disability grouped into one of five disability categories; amputation, the condition may be congenital or sustained through injury or illness; cerebral palsy; wheelchair athletes, there is often overlap between this and other categories; visual impairment, including blindness; Les autres, any physical disability that does not fall strictly under one of the other categories, for example dwarfism or multiple sclerosis.[4][5] Each Paralympic sport then has its own classifications, dependent upon the specific physical demands of competition. Events are given a code, made of numbers and letters, describing the type of event and classification of the athletes competing. Some sports, such as athletics, divide athletes by both the category and severity of their disabilities, other sports, for example swimming, group competitors from different categories together, the only separation being based on the severity of the disability.[6]
On 9 September 2011 Great Britain secured seven places at the Stoke Mandeville International, in addition to the six that they already had.[7]
The mixed adaptive double crew of Nick Beighton and Sam Scowen qualified for London 2012 at the World Rowing Championships.[8] Tom Agger also qualified.[9]
On 8 August 2011, five saliors became the first people to be named on the 2012 Paralympic team. John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Stephen Thomas will repersent Britain in the three-person Sonar competition. Also announced in the team were current Skud-18 World Champions, Niki Birrell and Alex Rickham.[10]
On 8 September 2011, the British Paralympic association announced that the Men's team would take up its home quota place.[11]
As hosts Great Britain automatically qualify one men's team and one women's team in wheelchair basketball.[12] Competing athletes are given an eight-level-score specific to wheelchair basketball, ranging from 0.5 to 4.5 with lower scores representing a higher degree of disability. The sum score of all players on the court cannot exceed 14.[13]
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