Paralympics: can Team USA turn things around for Los Angeles 2028?

Coming third in the Paralympics medal table would be a cause for celebration for most nations, but in the US it has been met with searching questions and more than a little finger-pointing.

Team USA's showing in Paris, finishing below China and Great Britain, follows a years-long period of underperformance. But it wasn't always this way. Between 1976 and 1996, Team USA topped the medal table at every Paralympics, and largely because of this it remains the all-time record holder for the most Paralympic medals and most golds.

But the past few decades have witnessed a remarkable reversal, with Team USA finishing sixth, fourth, third and third again respectively at the last four Paralympics. Ukraine, a nation with a population around a tenth that of the US and a GDP less than 1% the size, has finished above them in two of these, said CNN.

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The US decline is all the harder to swallow for Americans because it has coincided with a remarkable period of Paralympic glory for China. "At the Olympics, as in geopolitics, China is locked in a continuing battle for global dominance with the US," said The Guardian's Mark Dreyer. But when it comes to the Paralympics "China leaves the US (and everyone else) in the dust".

As the baton passes from Paris to Los Angeles, which will host the 2028 Games, time is running out for Team USA to get their act together and overtake China – and Team GB – on home soil in four years' time.

What did the commentators say?

There is no single answer to explain this decline of US Paralympic dominance, Julie Dussliere, Team USA's Paralympics chief, told CNN. However, one big factor is that the global growth of the Paralympic movement in recent decades has made the Games much more competitive and seen other countries dramatically increase their medal haul.

Another issue is "visibility", with the US trailing behind other countries in the coverage it has given to the Paralympics over the past 20 years. This "may also encourage a lack of general interest among audiences", said CNN, which in turn can put off sponsors and investment.

Funding is another issue. Unlike competitors from many other countries, said the BBC in 2016 following the Rio Paralympics, "US athletes, apart from Paralympic military veterans who get central government support, rely entirely on commercial sponsorship to pay for their training and living costs".

In contrast, China's Paralympic programme can draw on "almost limitless" funding from the state. But "it's about more than just money", said Dreyer. In China the majority of athletes with disabilities emerge from "poorer, rural areas and may have congenital diseases". This allows China to "maximise its talent identification and development advantages, with many athletes entering Paralympic programmes early in life, often through state-run schools and sports academies for people with disabilities".

Yet China's success has also been met with "scepticism and debate on various fronts", said EU Today. This has been driven by allegations of "classification manipulation", where athletes' disabilities are misrepresented, "allowing them to outperform athletes with more significant impairments". It seems success has also bred an air of complacency, with South China Morning Post reporting enthusiasm for the Paris 2024 Paralympics was "low".

What next?

There are hopes that Los Angeles hosting the Paralympics in 2028 will be an opportunity to "fundamentally change attitudes to para sport and disability in general in the US", said CNN.

Those looking for positive signs point to China and the UK, both of which saw a surge in public interest and Paralympic success in the lead up to and following their own hosting of the Olympics and Paralympics.

Mary Hums, a sport administration professor at the University of Louisville who has worked at four Paralympic Games, told CNN that China's improving position in the medal table through the 1990s and 2000s was "consistent with a country hosting an upcoming Games" in 2008.

Likewise a 2014 UK government report found almost 70% of the British public believed attitudes towards disabled people had improved since London hosted the 2012 Paralympics. Team GB's record medal haul at the Paris Paralympics reflects this. So while it is "difficult" to see a return to American dominance of the 1970s, 80s and 90s, "there is hope", said CNN.