Wheelchair Olympics
It was in the late 1940s that Sir Ludwig Guttmann came up with the idea of having World War II veterans with spinal cord injuries compete against each other in a sporting competition. The event took place in 1948 in Stoke Mandeville, England and proved very successful. Four years after Guttmann's competition, the Netherlands showed interest in participating in a similar event. This chain of events lead to people with disabilities competing in international sporting competitions.
The Olympic Games have been around for centuries and it was only a matter of time before similar competitions were open to people with disabilities. In 1960, one such Olympic-style competition was organized in Rome. Though it wasn't until 1976 in Toronto that various disability groups merged together to compete on an international level. That same year in Sweden the first official Paralympic Winter Games took place.
Now, decades later, more than 3,000 people worldwide take part in the Paralympic Games. The Paralympic games are very similar in nature to the Olympic Games. Both games are always held in the same year.
The number of different sports within the Paralympics is vast. As with the Olympic Games, there is always the possibility of new sports being added to the roster. Current summer Paralympic sports include archery, cycling and judo. Summer sports specific to wheelchair athletes include racing, rugby, basketball, dancing, fencing and tennis. Winter sports are limited to alpine skiing, ice sledge hockey, Nordic skiing and the only wheelchair-specific sport is curling.
All athletes in the Paralympic Games, including those in wheelchairs, are classified into different groups depending on their level of disability and degree of function. Let the Games begin!
