Pakistan at the 2016 Summer Paralympics

Pakistan has taken part in every Summer Paralympic Games since the 1992 edition in Barcelona. Entering the 2016 competition, the highest number of para-athletes sent by Pakistan was nine to the 2004 Games in Athens and the country had medalled once in athletics.^[1] The nation participated in the Rio Summer Paralympics from 7 to 18 September 2016. The National Paralympic Committee of Pakistan qualified three athletes for Rio but financial difficulties in March 2016 meant they only fielded one competitor for the Games.^[2] These problems were resolved five months later when the committee appealed to sponsors via Facebook to enable their delegation to be sent to Rio and received funding from the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB).^[3] The sole athlete to represent the country was the long jump competitor Haider Ali. He travelled with his coach Akbar Ali Mughal along with his manager and the Deputy Director Sports of the National Paralympic Committee of Pakistan Amna.^[2] Pakistan was one of several countries to send just one athlete to the Rio Paralympic Games.^[4] Ali was selected as the flag bearer for the opening ceremony.^[5]

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.^[6][7] 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.^[8]