The series aims to build on World Para Powerlifting’s online competition "Raise The Bar Together", which ran from April 3 to 17.

The competition asked athletes to submit up to three videos of lift attempts, which were then ranked by their AH score, which is made up of athlete performance and body weight to equalise and compare athletes.

World Para Powerlifting says the Online World Cup series will combine the Raise The Bar Together initiative with a virtual challenge in which four captains draft a team of powerlifters and score points based on athletes’ results.

The format is considered similar to a fantasy league as captains try to predict the performance of the selected athletes.

World Para Powerlifting invited a female and a male Paralympic medallist, a coach and a sport technical committee member to serve as team captains.

Team names were based on the colours of Para powerlifting discs.

Mexico’s three-time Paralympic champion Amalia Perez is captain of Team Blue, which will feature Kazakhstan’s Raushan Koishibayeva, Rakhmetzhan Khamayev and Aline Solodukhina, as well as Italy’s Donato Telesca.

World Para Powerlifting head of competition Pedro Meloni of Brazil captains Team Green, which includes Russia’s Anastasiia Mamadirova, Colombia’s Francisco Palomeque Palacios, Indonesia’s Sriyanti Sriyanti and New Zealand’s Matthew Gordon.

Team Red will be captained by Egypt’s three-time Paralympic gold medallist Sherif Osman, with Kazakhstan’s Tursynay Kabyl, Mali’s Bakary Diallo and the Colombian duo Fabio Torres and Cristina Poblador also featuring.

Italy’s Para powerlifting national team head coach Alessandro Boraschi captains Team Yellow, with Russia’s Vera Muratova, Indonesia’s Ni Nengah Widiasih, Colombia’s Jainer Cantillo and Matteo Cattini of Italy completing the team.

"I am really proud to be named captain of Team Yellow," Borachi said.

"It is an international dream team with athletes from Russia, Indonesia, Colombia and, of course, Italy.

"While we compete, we also have to make sure we stay home and stay safe."

The final scores are based on a statistical coefficient used to equalise and compare athletes’ performances between different body weights.

World Para Powerlifting technical officials are responsible for judging the athletes’ attempts through an online platform.

The winners of the opening series will be announced by World Para Powerlifting next week.

The first season will have a total of five Online World Cups, with the second event beginning on May 11.

World Para Powerlifting said athletes are strongly advised to follow guidance from national and local health authorities in therespectiveive countries and adhere to lockdown restrictions in order to contain the spread of coronavirus.