Do you know how the Paralympics came about?
Do you know how the Paralympics came about?
The Stoke Mandeville Games later became the Paralympic Games which first took place in Rome, Italy, in 1960 featuring 400 athletes from 23 countries. Since then they have taken place every four years.
In 1976 the first Winter Games in Paralympics history were held in Sweden, and as with the Summer Games, have taken place every four years, and include a Paralympics Opening Ceremony and Paralympics Closing Ceremony.
Since the Summer Games of Seoul, Korea in 1988 and the Winter Games in Albertville, France in 1992 the Games have also taken part in the same cities and venues as the Olympics due to an agreement between the IPC and IOC.
GROWTH OF THE PARALYMPIC FAMILY
Also in 1960, under the aegis of the World Federation of ex-servicemen, an International Working Group on Sport for the Disabled was set up to study the problems of sport for persons with an impairment. It resulted in the creation, in 1964, of the International Sport Organisation for the Disabled (ISOD) who offered opportunities for those athletes who could not affiliate to the International Stoke Mandeville Games: vision impaired, amputees, persons with cerebral palsy and paraplegics.
At the start, 16 countries were affiliated to ISOD and the organisation pushed very hard to include blind and amputee athletes into the Toronto 1976 Paralympics and athletes with cerebral palsy in 1980 in Arnhem. Its aim was to embrace all impairments in the future and to act as a Co-coordinating Committee. Nevertheless, other disability-orientated international organisations such as the Cerebral Palsy International Sports and Recreation Association (CPISRA) and International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA) were founded in 1978 and 1980.
The four international organisations experienced the need of co-ordinating the Games so they created the "International Co-coordinating Committee Sports for the Disabled in the World" (ICC) in 1982.
The ICC was originally composed of the four presidents of CPISRA, IBSA, ISMGF and ISOD, the general secretaries and one additional member (in the beginning it was the Vice-President, and later on the Technical Officer).
The International Committee of Sport for the Deaf (CISS) and International Sports Federations for Persons with an Intellectual Disability (INAS-FID) joined in 1986, but the deaf still maintained their own organisation. However, the member nations demanded more national and regional representation in the organisation.
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