'Biggest ever' Paralympics expected

London 2012 will be the biggest Paralympic Games ever, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has announced.

With 165 countries set to compete, there are 19 more nations taking part than at the Beijing 2008 Paralympics.

It also means the number of competitors rises from 3,951 to around 4,200. All countries have been allocated slots either through minimum qualifying standards, bipartite agreements or via wild cards.

There are also 16 nations who will be making their Paralympic debut. These include Antigua & Barbuda, Brunei, Cameroon, Comoros, Djibouti, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, North Korea, San Marino, Solomon Islands, Trinidad and Tobago and the US Virgin Islands.

IPC president Sir Philip Craven believes this year's Paralympics will be the movement's first sell-out and will feature "new levels" of athletic performance.

Beijing 2008 staged the best Paralympic Games to date, according to the IPC, complete with a staggering 279 new world records. A cumulative TV audience of 3.8 billion watched the Games around the world, and a further 3.44 million spectators packed out the venues.

Sir Philip predicted: "London could be the Paralympic Movement's first sold out Games in terms of spectators too. A record number of TV viewers around the world are also set to tune in.

"The recent Paralympic test events gave us all a flavour of what we can expect later this summer, and between now and August 29 the excitement levels will continue to rise to astronomical levels.

"It's hard to believe that the forerunner for the Paralympics took place just 64 years ago at Stoke Mandeville Hospital with 16 injured war veterans, when you consider that 4,200 elite athletes will now compete in London."

More than a million tickets, an unprecedented number so many months ahead of a Paralympics, were sold last September. Over a million tickets remaining for the Games go back on sale on Monday.