Paralympic Games

The Parallel Olympics

There have been several milestones in the Paralympic movement. From the 1948 Stoke Mandeville Games for the Disabled, in the United Kingdom organised by Dr Ludwig Guttmann, to coincide with the 1948 London Olympics; to the first official Paralympic Games, no longer open solely to war veterans, which was held in Rome in 1960.

The international Sports Organisation for the Disabled (ISOD) was founded in 1964 and was set up in order to administer disability sports in the same way that the IOC governs the Olympic Games and for the development of athletic opportunities for people with disabilities.

In 1982 this group became the International Coordinating Committee of World Sports Organisations for the Disabled (ICC), now with the added mandate of pushing for the rights of athletes with disabilities directly with the IOC. This cooperation between the ICC and IOC lead to the 1988 Summer Paralympics in Seoul, South Korea, a milestone for the Paralympic movement as it was in Seoul that the Paralympic Summer Games were held directly after the Olympic Summer Games, in the same host city, and using the same facilities. This set a precedent that has endured and again increased the remit of the ICC to include the organisation of the Paralympic Games. In 1989 it was reorganised and renamed the International Paralympic Committee.