Who started Paralympic Games?

Asked 04-Feb-2018
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Among all the moments in the history of mankind that have proven to be milestones in the growth of humanity, the moment when the decision to commence the first Paralympics, holds a very special place. Dr. Ludwig Guttmann was the founder of Paralympics. In 1944, at the request of the British Government, Dr. Ludwig Guttmann opened a spinal injuries centre at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Great Britain, and in time, rehabilitation sport evolved to recreational sport and then to competitive sport.

                                                  Who started Paralympic Games?

 On the 29th of July, 1948, on the day of the Opening Ceremony of the London 1948 Olympic Games, a gentleman named Dr. Guttmann organized the first competition for wheelchair athletes. He named that competition the “Stoke Mandeville Games” and it was milestone in the Paralympics history. It involved 16 injured servicemen and women who took part in archery. Then, in 1952, Dutch ex-servicemen joined that Movement and thus, the International Stoke Mandeville Games were founded.
                                                                              Who started Paralympic Games?
Sport for athletes with impairment had existed for more than 100 years, and the first sport clubs for the deaf were already in existence in 1888 in Berlin. But it was not until after the Second World War, however, that the concept of this game event was widely introduced. At that time, its purpose used to be to assist the large number of war veterans and civilians who had been injured during wartime.
The first Paralympics Games were held in Rome, Italy in 1960 and it featured about 400 athletes from 23 different countries. In 1976, Sweden staged the first Paralympics Winter Games. The Games have now become the second biggest sporting event in the entire world. Since then, they have been taking place every four years.
The word “Paralympic” is derived from the Greek word “para” (meaning beside or alongside) and the word “Olympic”. It means is that Paralympics are the parallel Games to the Olympics and illustrates how the two movements exist side-by-side.


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Very Informative. Thanks. - Anonymous User19-Jan-2019


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It’s one of the major international multiple sports events which is organized for sportsperson who are having physical disabilities. These disabilities include impaired muscle power (e.g. paraplegia and quadriplegia, muscular dystrophy, post-polio syndrome, spina bifida), an impaired passive range of movement, limb deficiency (e.g. amputation or dysmelia), leg length difference, short stature, hypertonia, ataxia, athetosis, vision impairment and intellectual impairment.

Who started Paralympic Games?
The Paralympics games are been governed by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). It started with a small gathering of veterans of World War II in the year 1948 by Dr. Ludwig Guttmann of Stoke Mandeville Hospital, and after few years it became a global level sports events.


The Paralympic games which held in 1960 were having 400 participants with disabilities with 23 countries and the in the recent Paralympic there were more than 1000 disabled athletes from around 100 countries. Paralympic games are been organized in parallel with Olympic games.