United States at the 2008 Summer Paralympics
| United States at the 2008 Summer Paralympics |
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| IPC code | USA | ||||||||
| NPC | United States Paralympic Committee | ||||||||
| Website | www |
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| in Beijing | |||||||||
| Competitors | 213 in 18 sports | ||||||||
| Flag bearer |
Jennifer Armbruster (opening) (closing) |
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Medals Ranked 3rd |
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| Summer Paralympics appearances | |||||||||
The United States sent a delegation to compete at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, China. A total of 213 U.S. competitors took part in 18 sports; the only 2 sports Americans did not compete in were soccer 5-a-side and 7-a-side. The American delegation included 16 former members of the U.S. military, including 3 veterans of the Iraq War. Among them were shot putter Scott Winkler, who was paralyzed in an accident in Iraq, and swimmer , a former United States Army officer who lost her left leg to a roadside bomb in the war.
The United States finished third in the gold and overall medal count, behind host nation China and Great Britain. The finish was an improvement from the 2004 Paralympics, where the U.S. finished fourth in the gold and overall medal count. The U.S. saw significant gains in Paralympic swimming, winning 17 gold medals and 44 total medals, 9 more than they took home from Athens. U.S. swimmers set a total of 16 world records, 23 Paralympic records, 48 Pan American records and 99 American records. U.S. coverage of the Games was provided by the Universal Sports Television Network and the official website of the U.S. Paralympic Team, usparalympics.org.
Every participant at the Paralympics had their disability grouped into one of five disability categories: amputation (either congenital or sustained through injury or illness); cerebral palsy; wheelchair athletes (often overlapping with other categories); visual impairment (including blindness); and les autres (any physical disability that does not fall strictly under one of the other categories, for example dwarfism or multiple sclerosis). Each Paralympic sport then had its own classifications, depending on the specific physical demands of the competition. Events were given a code, made of numbers and letters, describing the type of event and classification of the athletes competing. Some sports, such as athletics, divided athletes by both the category and severity of their disabilities. Other sports, such as swimming, grouped competitors from different categories together, the only separation being based on the severity of the disability.
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