Paralympic Games

• In 1948, Sir Ludwig Guttmann organized
  
  a sports competition involving World War II veterans
  
  with a spinal cord injury in Stoke Mandeville, England.


• Four years later, competitors from the Netherlands
  
  joined the games and an international movement was born


• Olympic style games for athletes with a disability
  
  were organized for the first time in Rome in 1960,
  
  now called Paralympics.


• In Toronto in 1976, other disability groups were added
  
  and the idea of merging together different disability
  
  groups for international sport competitions was born.