Here is a breakdown in numbers:

- A record 2.5 MILLION TICKETS have been put on sale, with organisers expecting the first-ever Paralympic sell-out.

- 4,200 ATHLETES are vying in 503 medal events, up from 3,951 competitors in Beijing in 2008.

- There are 20 PARALYMPIC SPORTS in 2012, including athletics, swimming, cycling, wheelchair rugby, and goalball, in which visually-impaired athletes play with a ball embedded with a bell.

- 15 MEN’S 100 METRE FINALS will be contested under the complex Paralympic classification system, which tries to ensure fair competition by pitting athletes of similar levels of impairment against each other.

- 166 COUNTRIES are expected to send athletes to the Games.

- Some 16 nations will be making their Paralympic debut, including North Korea and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

- There are 15 COMPETITION VENUES, including the Olympic Stadium, velodrome, aquatics centre and Eton Manor, a permanent new complex of nine wheelchair tennis courts inside the Olympic Park.

- 1,250 ANTI-DOPING SAMPLES will be taken during the Paralympics, an increase of 25% since Beijing.

- A workshop with 15,000 SPARE PARTS will be on standby to repair athletes’ wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs and orthoses — devices which support the limbs.

- 580 TORCHBEARERS will carry the Paralympic flame in a 24-hour relay from Stoke Mandeville — the birthplace of the Paralympic movement, in southern England — to arrive at London’s Olympic Stadium on August 29.

- 780 HOURS OF LIVE COVERAGE will be streamed on the International Paralympic Committee’s website, with commentary in English and Spanish.