PyeongChang 2018: The record-breaking Games

The PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games will close on Sunday evening (18 March) having broken multiple records.

The 10 day event has witnessed a record 567 athletes from 49 delegations – more than any previous edition - compete in 80 medal events across six sports.

Covering the action has been 629 accredited media, 15 per cent more than the Sochi 2014, and 47 broadcast rights holders who have screened TV pictures to more than 100 countries.

Nearly 343,000 tickets have been sold for PyeongChang 2018, smashing the previous record of 316,200 sales set at the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games. The number of tickets sold is also double the number sold for the Torino 2006 Paralympics and 110,000 sales greater than what was sold for Vancouver 2010.

Of the 49 competing delegations, 26 have won a medal, beating the record set at the Lillehammer 1994 Paralympic Winter Games. A record 20 countries have won gold, beating the previous best of 17 set at the Nagano 1998 and Salt Lake City 2002 Paralympic Winter Games.

Four countries - China, Croatia, Kazakhstan and hosts South Korea – all won their first Winter Games gold medals.

Andrew Parsons, IPC President, said: “The PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games have smashed pretty much every record in the book, setting new benchmarks for all future organising committees.

“The record number of participating countries and gold medal winning countries during the Games underlines the growing strength of the Paralympic Movement. They key now is to build on this momentum to make the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games even bigger and better.

“I would like to thank the PyeongChang 2018 Organising Committee, all participating National Paralympic Committees, International Federations and IPC team for contributing to the success of these Games.”

The IPC’s digital media channels have also set new records during PyeongChang 2018.

Activities across its social media profiles have reached more people than the London 2012 and Sochi 2014 Paralympic Games combined. More than 10 million videos have been viewed across all IPC platforms, which is greater than London 2012 and Sochi 2014 combined. More than 1.7 million videos have been viewed across Twitter, greater than the 1.2 million that were watched during Rio 2016.

Visitor numbers to Paralympic.org, the IPC website, are also up 62 per cent compared to Sochi 2014.