Pfaller brings a vast experience to the role having appeared at five Paralympic Games, winning pentathlon gold at Seoul 1988 before converting into a basketball player.

The 59-year-old currently serves as President of the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) Europe and a Board member of the APC.

In addition to his experience as an athlete, he gained experience working with the Austrian delegations at Beijing 2008 and London 2012.

Rio 2016 will be the first time he has led the team, however. 

"It is an honourable and very interesting task, while a major challenge,” said Pfaller.

“I am very excited about it, in London we were very successful with 13 medals.

“Hopefully we can celebrate similar good performance in Rio.

“We have a few candidates for a medal here, but it is overall much more difficult.”

Pfaller is due to be assisted by Julia Voglmayr, who works on ‎Games Management and Events at the APC, after she was appointed deputy head of delegation.

It will be the third consecutive Paralympic Games Voglmayr has worked on, having assisted the Austrian team at London 2012 and Sochi 2014.

Austria will be hoping to achieve similar success to London 2012 where they earned four gold medals, with T46 athlete Gunther Matzinger winning 400 metres and 800m titles.

Cyclist Walter Ablinger won the men's individual H2 road race.

Dressage competitor Pepo Puch, meanwhile, won the gold medal in the individual freestyle test - Grade 1b.

Austria won a total of 14 medals to place 30th overall.