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Prior to Sochi, have countries completely or partially boycotted Paralympic games as a political protest in and of itself, without it being the follow-on of the Olympics being boycotted?

Non-example: Elbonia boycotts Sydney 2000 Olympics, and also boycotts Sydney 2000 Paralympics.

Valid example: Elbonia competes at Sydney 2000 Olympics. Part of the way through the Paralympics, Australia announces it'll resume culling of kangaroos. Elbonia ceases competing at the Paralympics in protest.

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    Elbonia's main problem is their inability to get mud-wrestling accepted as an Olympic event. – T.E.D.♦ Mar 8 '14 at 14:08
  • I seriously doubt the political situation between 2 countries has ever shifted so radically in the short interval between the olympics and paralympics as to warrant a boycot. Also, even if it had, a lot of countries don't take part in the paralympics as they simply lack either the funds and/or the professional disabled atheletes to enable them to take part. And of course the paralympics are a relatively recent event compared to the olympics so there have been far fewer events to boycot in the first place. – jwenting Mar 8 '14 at 19:15
  • @T.E.D. they'd be more suited to compete in the Kashima Gatalympics. – Andrew Grimm Mar 9 '14 at 0:00
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Here are a couple of cases that may have come close:

  • The 1968 Tel Aviv Paralympics took place in Israel and were attended by 28 countries. However, I couldn't find any indication that any of the countries not attending were actively boycotting the event (the Paralympics were a small event at the time). Still, it's worth noting that Lebanon and Yugoslavia had both attended the 1960 Rome Paralympics (though not 1964 Tokyo Paralympics) but stayed away in 1968.
  • A number of countries boycotted the 1976 Toronto Paralympics due to South Africa's participation. While many (all?) of those countries also boycotted the 1976 Montreal Olympics, the reason wasn't identical: South Africa was already banned from the Olympics, and the boycott there was due to the IOC's refusal to ban New Zealand for their South African tour. South Africa was only banned from the Paralympics in 1980.

As alluded to in the question, Ukraine considered boycotting the 2014 Sochi Paralympics due to Russia's annexation of Crimea, but didn't in the end. A number of countries chose not to send governmental delegations to the Games.

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  • Regarding the 1968 games, the Israeli organizer is quoted as saying “We announced we were accepting athletes from Arab countries, but nobody appeared." – Uri Zarfaty Mar 20 '15 at 11:11

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