The Paralympics begin in Paris this week. Here's what to watch for

ADRIAN MA, HOST:

The Paralympic Games kick off this week in Paris. Four thousand-plus athletes are going to be arriving from around the world to compete, and even before it's begun, there's already some controversy brewing. For the first time ever, one of the competitors is a trans woman, the Italian runner Valentina Petrillo. She's making her first Paralympic debut a few years after making her transition. And joining us now to explain more is NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan. Hey, Becky.

BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Hello.

MA: OK, Becky, tell us more about Petrillo. What's her story?

SULLIVAN: Yeah, so she is set to compete in two races in Paris, the women's 200-meter and 400-meter races in what's known as the T12 category, which is the name of the category for people with, like, a medium visual impairment. They - in these races, she'll run alongside a sighted guide because she has a condition called Stargardt disease, which causes your vision to deteriorate over time. So she sees much less than somebody with, like, more typical vision. She's 50 years old. She was assigned male at birth and lived most of her life as a man, and she has said in interviews that she knew she was female back when she was a child. And she began to transition about five or six years ago. She started living as a woman, and then she started undergoing hormone therapy. And now she competes in women's races.

MA: Was there any question of whether Petrillo would be allowed to compete in the Paralympics?

SULLIVAN: In the Paralympics, no - and in terms of being trans, there wasn't. Her participation in Italy had been challenged a few years ago by other Italian runners who said, you know, it wasn't fair for her to take part in women's races. But Italian sporting officials have allowed her to compete. They chose her to represent Italy at the Paralympics. And Paralympic officials say, you know, she's welcome at the Games.

Complicating this is that there's just no one single rule that governs all of international sports when it comes to who is eligible to compete in women's sports. The International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee both delegate those decisions to the individual sports, essentially. And so whereas on the Olympic side, you have World Athletics, which oversees the track and field events there, male puberty for them is the demarcator (ph). And so if you have gone through puberty as a boy, you cannot later participate in women's sports, meaning someone like Petrillo wouldn't have been allowed to compete in the Olympics.

But by contrast, you have World Para Athletics that oversees the Paralympic equivalents of track and field, and they do allow for the participation of transgender women in women's events. And so you kind of end up with this, like, patchwork of eligibility rules that leaves open the door for criticism over who should be allowed to compete. And officials, both for the Olympics and the Paralympics, say that they're - really need consistent gender eligibility standards across all sports, one that is both scientifically rigorous but also is respectful of these athletes' human rights.

MA: So before you go, could you just give us kind of a wider picture, a little preview of the Paralympics?

SULLIVAN: So the opening ceremony is on Wednesday, and the competitions begin Thursday. And it's inspiring to watch, both just, like, amazing athletic performances but also, given that the individual challenges that these athletes have had to overcome to compete at this level, it's pretty amazing to watch. So the U.S. is sending more than 200 athletes to the Paralympics, and one competitor among the athletes is Hunter Woodhall. He's the husband of an Olympian, in fact, and the videos of their interactions in Paris went viral, so maybe you'll recognize them. His wife is Tara Davis-Woodhall, who won the gold medal in the Olympic women's long jump. So now it's his turn to compete. Hunter had both of his legs amputated when he was a baby. He runs with prosthetics. You'll be able to see him compete in two events. That's the men's 100-meter race and the 400-meter race.

MA: Fascinating. I wonder how intense the medal competition is in that household. NPR's Becky Sullivan, thank you so much.

SULLIVAN: You're so welcome.

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