MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd August, 2021) The Paralympic Games in Tokyo will gather 162 delegations, including the Refugee Paralympic Team, to compete in the sporting event, beating the 2016 Games by the number of participating teams, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) said on Monday.
The 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro hosted 159 delegations, while the largest number of teams � 164 � partook in the London Games in 2012.
"Tokyo 2020 will exceed Rio 2016 in terms of the number of National Paralympic Committees (NPCs) set to take part in the Paralympic Games. A total of 162 delegations, including the Refugee Paralympic Team and five nations making their Games debut, will compete across 22 sports," the IPC said in a statement.
A total of 21 nations will be unable to compete, the committee said, noting that the list includes Afghanistan, as flights in and out of the country were suspended after the Taliban (banned in Russia as a terrorist organization) seized Kabul earlier in August.
Five more nations � Bhutan, Grenada, Maldives, Paraguay and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines � will make their Games debut, the statement added.
The Tokyo Paralympics, originally scheduled to take place in 2020, were postponed for a year because of the coronavirus pandemic. The sporting event is now set to run from August 24 to September 5.
