History and Development of the Paralympic Games. Issues within the Paralympic Movement (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject Sport - Disabled Sports, grade: 1,7, Munich University of Applied Sciences, language: English, abstract: This paper deals with the history and development of the Paralympic Games from their small beginnings as a competition for disabled ex-servicemen and women in England founded shortly after the Second World War to the present international festival of Summer and Winter Games organized in conjunction with the Olympic Games. Furthermore, the development of the term "Paralympic" will be explained and some major issues within the Paralympic Movement will to be shown.

The Paralympic Games are a modern-day sporting phenomenon that has grown from a small archery demonstration event many years ago to the second largest multi-sport festival on the planet after the Olympic Games. These Games for athletes with disabilities have played a major role in changing attitudes towards disability and accelerating the agenda for inclusion.

The Games trace their origins to the work of Dr Ludwig Guttmann at the National Spinal Injuries Unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire who used sport as an integral part of the treatment of paraplegic patients. The first competition for wheelchair athletes, named the Stoke Mandeville Games, was organized by him on the day of the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympic Games in 1948. These Games later became the Paralympic Games, which first took place in Italy in 1960.

The Paralympic Games are the Olympic Games for athletes with disabilities and are nowadays organized by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). In the beginning, only paraplegic athletes were allowed to participate, but this has changed in the past years. Blind, visually impaired, amputees and athletes with other disabilities are also allowed to participate in the games. To be able to evaluate the athletes fairly, they are divided into so-called damage classes.