Accompanied by Portuguese National Paralympic Committee (NPC) President José Manuel Lourenço, the trio discussed the development of Para-sport in Portugal and the Government’s commitment to growing participation and hosting major Para-sport events.

"The meeting with the Minister of Education and Sport Mr. Rodrigues painted an excellent picture of how committed and passionate he and the National Paralympic Committee are to growing the Paralympic Movement in Portugal," Parsons said.

"The Government has increased its investment in Para-sport by 84 per cent and is fully focused on sending its strongest-ever team of Para-athletes to the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.

"It was an excellent meeting.

"During my days in Portugal it was extremely beneficial to be given a full update on the work of the National Paralympic Committee and attend its Congress in Braga to meet and hear from a number of the Portuguese-speaking NPCs.

"As IPC President, I feel it is vitally important to reach out to members and find out what progress they are making, discuss the challenges they are facing and ways in which the IPC can support them further."

As part of his four-day working visit to Portugal, Parsons met with Lisbon Mayor Fernando Medina, visited the facilities of the NPC and held discussions with the NPC’s Executive Commission.

He also delivered a keynote address in Braga, where the two-day Portuguese NPC Congress on impacts and challenges of sport inclusion was held.

The event was attended by around 200 people, including representatives from Portuguese-speaking NPCs such as Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Timor Leste.

One of the outcomes was the desire for a common strategy for the development of Para-sport among Portuguese-speaking nations.

Portugal won four medals at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, all of which were bronze.

Runners Luís Gonçalves and Manuel Mendes finished third in the men’s 400 metres T12 and men’s marathon T46 events respectively.

Portugal also won two boccia bronze medals with José Macedo rounding out the podium in the mixed individual BC3 event and the quartet of Fernando Ferreira, Cristina Gonçalves, António Marques and Abílio Valente completing the top three in mixed team BC1–2 competition.

Parsons is due to attend this week’s SportAccord Convention in Bangkok.

He is set to meet with NPC Thailand in the capital before meeting NPC representatives and politicians in Malaysia and Singapore.