Spain's Ivan Jose Cano Blanco competes in the Men's Long Jump T13 Final during the World Para Athletics Championships in London in July 2017 ©Getty Images

The sixth year of the World Para Athletics Grand Prix series will take in nine towns and cities across four continents, starting in Dubai in March and finishing in Berlin in July.

For the second successive year, the United Arab Emirates will host the season opening event with around 450 athletes set to compete from March 13 to 16. 

At last year’s Dubai Grand Prix athletes broke seven world records and more records are likely to fall on a return to the Dubai Club for the Disabled track.

From there athletes will head to South America with the Brazilian Paralympic Committee’s Paralympic Training Centre, in Sao Paulo, staging the season’s second Grand Prix between April 26 to 28.

The Grand Prix series then takes in a third continent as track and field action returns to Beijing, China from May 11 to 13. 

The event, which takes place at one of the training venues used for the Beijing 2008 Games, is likely to attract many of the athletes that led China to the top of the medals table at the London 2017 World Para Athletics Championships.

Rieti, Italy, was a new addition to the calendar in 2017 and the Stadio Raul Guidobaldi track will host the fourth Grand Prix of the year from May 18 to 20.

Masayuki Higuchi, of Japan, competes in 5000metre Wheelchair Men's final during the World Para Athletics Grand Prix in March 2017 in Dubai ©Getty Images
Masayuki Higuchi, of Japan, competes in 5000metre Wheelchair Men's final during the World Para Athletics Grand Prix in March 2017 in Dubai ©Getty Images

One week later, Nottwil in Switzerland plays host to the 2018 Grand Prix series with three days of world-class Para athletics set to take place from May 25 to 27. 

In 2017, 11 world records were broken at the Swiss track in what has become one of the most highly regarded wheelchair meetings in the world.

The month of June sees four Grand Prix taking place around the world.

The Arizona Grand Prix in the USA takes place in early June, while after a hugely successful inaugural Paris Grand Prix in 2017, it is then the turn of the Stade Charléty in the French capital to open its doors for two days of competition from June 15 to 16.

The penultimate Grand Prix of 2018 takes place from June 22 to 24 in Tunis, Tunisia – a country that boasts plenty of home-grown talent and finished sixth on the medals table at the 2017 World Championships.

The year’s final Grand Prix will take place in Berlin from June 30 to July 1 and will act as a curtain raiser to the World Para Athletics European Championships which take place in the same venue - the city’s Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Sportpark – just eight weeks later.

The European Championships have taken place every two years since 2012 having been first held in Assen, in The Netherlands, in 2003.

The 2018 Championships in Berlin will be the sixth edition - following on from Grosseto, Italy in 2016 - and take place from August 20 to 26.