Welcome Guest! | 

Sir Ludwig Guttman

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. In the same year, the first Paralympic Winter Games took place in Sweden.

Today, the Paralympics are elite sport events for athletes with a disability. They emphasize, however, the participants’ athletic achievements rather than their disability. The movement has grown dramatically since its first days. The number of athletes participating in Summer Paralympic Games has increased from 400 athletes from 23 countries in Rome in 1960 to 3,951 athletes from 146 countries in Beijing in 2008.

The Paralympic Games have always been held in the same year as the Olympic Games. Since the Seoul 1988 Paralympic Games and the Albertville 1992 Winter Paralympic Games they have also taken place at the same venues as the Olympics. On 19 June 2001, an agreement was signed between the IOC and the IPC securing this practice for the future. From the 2012 bid process onwards, the host city chosen to host the Olympic Games will be obliged to also host the Paralympics.

The British city of London will host the next Paralympic Games in 2012, whereas Sochi will host the Winter Paralympics in 2014 and Rio will be the host of the 2016 Paralympic Games.

Israel has always been traditionally more successful in the Paralympic Games, having won a total of 113 medals compared with 13 in the Olympics overall.

 

Contact Us

Jewish Committee for the London Games ("JCLG") at the Jewish Volunteering Network.
Schaller House, Wohl Campus for Jewish Education, 44a Albert Road, London, NW4 2SJ
Telephone: +44 (0)20 8203 6427
Email: info@visitjewishlondon.com

© www.VisitJewishLondon.com / JCLG. All right reserved - Admin Login -