The Paralympics

As a comparatively young sporting event, the Paralympics is still evolving, most notably in its classification scheme. This was absent at its start in 1948, as it was simply for paralysed ex-servicemen/women participating in their single sport of archery. Today, as this video shows, there is a complex, evidence-based, sport-specific process by which disabled competitors are categorised:-

It was Professor Sir Ludwig Guttemann (1899-1980), a refugee from Germany, who had the idea of getting his spinal injury patients at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire to put some effort into rehabilitation, rather than lying in bed all day. Indeed, the Paralympics began as the ‘Stoke Mandeville Festival of Sport’. He could see the wounded still had their competitive spirit and used this to rebuild their psychological, physical and social environments.

His initiative was an instant success and by 1960 the Paralympics were truly international, with 400 participants in Rome. Thanks to leaders such as Lancashire-born Sir Philip Craven (1950-), himself an multi-discipline Paralympian, the Games are commanding increasing levels of support, with thousands of entrants and the use of the same venues as the Olympics.

There is now a National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville which treats adults and children from the UK and elsewhere.

(Top image from 2024 Paralympics: Gail Leenstra at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0)