Text 5. Sports for Persons with a Disability

Sport for people with a physical disability was introduced after World War II, to assist the medical and psychological needs of the large number of injured ex-servicemen, - women and civilians. In researching new methods to minimize the consequences of their immobility, it provided a new and great possibility for reviving the idea of sport as a means of treatment and rehabilitation.

In 1944, Dr. Ludvig Guttmann, opened a spinal injuries centre at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital, and new approach introduced sport as a paramount part of the remedial treatment and total rehabilitation of persons with a disability. Rehabilitation sport evolved rather quickly to recreational sport and the next step to competitive sport was only a matter of some years.

On 28 July 1948, the day of the Opening Ceremony of the 1948 Olympic Games in London, Dr. Guttmann organized the first competition for wheelchair athletes. In 1960, the first Paralympic Games were held directly following the Olympic Games in Rome, Italy. The event used the same venues and format as the Olympic event and included 400 athletes from 23 countries. This event was to continue every 4 years following the Olympic cycle. A number of different disability groups were merged in competition in 1976 and in the same year the first Paralympic Winter Games took place.

Also in 1960, under the aegis of the World Federation for Ex-servicemen, an International Working group on Sport for the Disabled was set up to study the problems of sport for persons with a disability. It resulted in the creation, in 1964, of an international sport federation called: International Sport Organization for the Disabled. It offered opportunities for: visually impaired, amputees, persons with cerebral palsy and paraplegics. At the start, 16 countries were affiliated to ICOD and the organization pushed very hard to include blind and amputee athletes into the 1976 Paralympics in Toronto and persons with cerebral palsy in 1980 in Arnhem. In 1982 four International organizations created the “International Coordinating Committee Sports for the Disabled in the World” (ICC). However, the member nations demanded more national and regional representation in the organization. This finally led to the foundation of a new, democratically organized institution, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).