Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

participated in the inaugural Paralympic Games in 1960 in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, with a single representative, swimmer Tauno Valkama - who won gold in his sole event, the 50m crawl. The country was absent from the 1964 Games, but returned in 1968, and has participated in every subsequent edition of the

Summer Paralympics The Summer Paralympics also known as the Games of the Paralympiad, are an international multi-sport event where athletes with physical disabilities compete. This includes athletes with mobility disabilities, amputations, blindness, and cerebral ...

. Finland has also taken part in every edition of the

Winter Paralympics The Winter Paralympic Games is an international multi-sport event where athletes with physical disabilities compete in snow and ice sports. The event includes athletes with mobility impairments, amputations, blindness, and cerebral palsy. Th ...

, from the first in 1976. Finland's 'awakening' to the Paralympics came in 1976, both at the inaugural Winter Games (where it finished third on the medal chart), and at the Summer Games, where it won fifty medals - forty-seven more than it had at the previous summer edition. The country performed strongly throughout the 1980s, then began to decline, in terms of both medal hauls and ranking. In 2004, Finns won only eight medals - the first time since 1972 that they had won fewer than ten. At the Winter Games, Finland was initially a major power, ranking in the top 3 until 1988, and in the top 10 until 2002, despite a gradual yet steady decline. At the 2006 Winter Games, Finland failed to win a single medal; the country won only a silver and a bronze in 2010.Finland at the Paralympics
International Paralympic Committee

Medals

Summer Paralympics

Winter Paralympics

References

Paralympics The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the ''Games of the Paralympiad'', is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power and impaired ...

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Medals

Summer Paralympics

Winter Paralympics

See also

References