Book excerpt: This brand new Handbook addresses Paralympic sports and athletes, providing practical information on the medical issues, biological factors in the performance of the sports and physical conditioning. The book begins with a comprehensive introduction of the Paralympic athlete, followed by discipline-specific reviews from leading authorities in disability sport science, each covering the biomechanics, physiology, medicine, philosophy, sociology and psychology of the discipline. The Paralympic Athlete also addresses recent assessment and training tools to enhance the performance of athletes, particularly useful for trainers and coaches, and examples of best practice on athletes' scientific counseling are also presented. This new title sits in a series of specialist reference volumes, ideal for the use of professionals working directly with competitive athletes.