The 2000 Summer Paralympic Games or the XI Summer Paralympics were held in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, between 18 and 29 October. The Sydney Paralympics was last time that the Summer Paralympics which were organized by two different Organizing Committees. In this edition, a record 3,801 athletes from 120 National Paralympic Committees participated in 551 events in 18 sports and until the 2006 Commonwealth Games held in Melbourne, was the second largest sporting event ever held in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere. Sydney was the eighth city to host the Olympics and the Paralympics on same venues at the same year, and the first since Barcelona 1992 that they were organized in conjunction with the Olympics. They were also the first Paralympic Games outside the Northern Hemisphere and also in Oceania.