Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijani para-athletes received three more licenses to the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games to be held on September 7-18.

President of Azerbaijan National Paralympic Committee, Ilgar Rahimov said that the International Paralympic Committee sent an official letter to Azerbaijan informing about these licenses.

Thus, in the Games Azerbaijan will also be represented by gold medalist of the Paralympic Games in London Afaq Sultanova, judoka Ramin Aliyev and athlete Huseyn Huseynov.

Azerbaijan will be represented by 27 para-athletes in six sports in the Rio Paralympics. In total, the country’s paraolympians got 44 licenses.

Russia's appeal against the blanket ban imposed by Paralympics officials was rejected Tuesday — ending any hope the country's Paralympians had of competing in Rio.

The Court for the Arbitration of Sport upheld the decision made by the International Paralympic Committee following allegations of state-sponsored doping.

Thus, Russia’s 267 licenses were distributed among other countries- participants of the Paralympic Games in Rio.

The Azerbaijani National Paralympic Committee, representing the country in the international paralympic movement, was established in 1996. The same year, two Azerbaijani paralympans joined the 10th Summer Paralympics in Atlanta, the U.S..

Since then, Azerbaijani athletes could gain 27 medals in total, which include 8 gold, 10 silver and 9 bronze medals.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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