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Paralympic Games



         


The Paralympic Games are an official equivalent of the Olympics for athletes with physical disabilities. This includes mobility disabilities, amputees, visual disabilities and those with Cerebral Palsy.

Sir Ludwig Guttmann organized a sports competition in 1948 which became known as the Stoke Mandeville Games, involving World War II veterans with spinal cord injuries; in 1952 competitors from the Netherlands took part in the competition, giving an international notion to the movement. The first Olympic Style games for athletes with a disability were held in Rome in 1960 which became the Paralympic Games. The first Winter Paralympics were held in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden in 1976. The Games are now always held alongside the Olympic Games as of June 19, 2001 when an agreement was signed between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) securing this practice for the future.

The IPC logo denotes three motto.

The next Paralympic Games are going to be held in Athens, Greece from 17th to 28th September 2004. These will be the 12th Paralympic Summer Games. Four thousand athletes will participate, representing 145 countries in nineteen sports. A record number of broadcasters will be present to cover the Athens 2004 Paralympics , though the events will not be broadcast in the United States . Previous Paralympics have also suffered from limited broadcast and sponsorship.

The name derives from the Greek "para" ("beside" or "alongside"), and has nothing do do with paralysis or paraplegia.

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Summer Games

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Winter Games

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Summer Sports

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Winter Sports







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