Valentina Petrillo is set to become the first openly transgender athlete to participate in the Paralympic Games after the visually impaired sprinter was selected to represent Italy in the women's 200 and 400 metres races in Paris.

Rio on Sunday closes a Paralympic Games that many feared would be a fiasco but which turned into a triumph, though marred in the final hours by the death of an Iranian cyclist.

Residents of the German city of Hamburg have voted against hosting the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.