--- title: Paralympics History: Here's How the Games First Started description: A look back at the World War II origins of the precursor to the international event that is the Paralympic Games. canonical: https://time.com/4480655/paralympics-history/ author: Olivia B. Waxman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-06T21:48:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T02:56:55.000Z article:section: History og:title: Paralympics History: Here's How the Games First Started og:description: The first competition was archery og:url: https://time.com/4480655/paralympics-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb4253aa499fcec3d/6988a4f60a4a2267539cb292/gettyimages-149974510.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3933 og:image:height: 2212 og:image:alt: Stoke Mandeville Archers og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Paralympics History: Here's How the Games First Started twitter:description: The first competition was archery twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb4253aa499fcec3d/6988a4f60a4a2267539cb292/gettyimages-149974510.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The World War II Origins of the Paralympic Games > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Updated: Dec 13, 2023 2:56 AM UTCPublished: Sep 6, 2016 9:48 PM UTC  An archery class at the Ministry of Pensions Spinal Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Buckinghamshire, UK, 1949. An archery class at the Ministry of Pensions Spinal Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Buckinghamshire, UK, 1949. Raymond Kleboe/Picture Post—Getty Images  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Updated: Dec 13, 2023 2:56 AM UTCPublished: Sep 6, 2016 9:48 PM UTC In the decades since the event was first held, [Paralympic Games](https://www.paralympic.org/rio-2016) has grown dramatically from its origins as an archery competition among 16 wheelchair-bound British World War II veterans. That first contest took place on [July 29, 1948](https://www.paralympic.org/the-ipc/history-of-the-movement), at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital, about an hour east of Oxford. The event was the brainchild Sir Ludwig Guttmann, a German neurosurgeon who fled Nazi Germany and left a job at Oxford University to head up the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville. The facility had opened in March 1944 to care for service members and civilians who had suffered spinal cord injuries during the war, Ian Brittain writes in [_The Paralympics Games Explained_](https://books.google.com/books?id=IEiTDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=paralympics+explained&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjKy67PrPvOAhXEYyYKHYQRD24Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=paralympics%20explained&f=false)_._ (More patients were admitted after D-Day, according to the science journals [_Nature_](http://www.nature.com/sc/journal/v18/n3/pdf/sc198027a.pdf?origin=publication%5Fdetail)and [_Brain_](http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/brain/135/11/3193.full.pdf)_._) Guttmann’s demonstration of the patients’ athletic skills was merely a side benefit of a new rehabilitation philosophy, which emphasized helping paraplegic patients develop their strength even if they would not walk again. Previously, such spinal injury cases were considered “hopeless” and many victims lived for a matter of weeks, or at most a couple of years, and often died of sepsis and kidney failure. The choice of archery for the first games was strategic. Practically, the sport plays to their upper body capabilities, but “it was also one of the very few sports that, once proficient, paraplegics could compete on equal terms with their non-disabled counterparts,” Brittain writes. “This led to visits of teams from Stoke Mandeville to a number of non-disabled archery clubs in later years, which were very helpful in breaking down the barriers between the public and paraplegics.” [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) Brittain argues that participation in the so-called “Stoke Mandeville Games” grew partly thanks to patients and doctors moving among different spinal units and attention that came after related research was published in a now defunct journal called _The Cord._ The event began attracting international athletes in 1952 when [Dutch ex-servicemen joined](https://www.paralympic.org/the-ipc/history-of-the-movement). [By 1953](http://time.com/vault/issue/1953-08-17/page/44/), when TIME covered the competition, the event attracted an audience of 3,000 to watch 200 athletes from eight nations. It featured netball (similar to basketball), snooker (similar to pool), archery, table tennis, javelin, shot put and swimming. While the timing of the 1948 archery demonstration coincided with the 1948 Summer Olympics in London — and [some scholars](https://books.google.com/books?id=IEiTDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=paralympics+explained&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjKy67PrPvOAhXEYyYKHYQRD24Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=paralympics%20explained&f=false) debate whether that was intentional — the first Paralympic Games specifically held as a parallel to the Olympics took place in Rome in 1960 with 400 athletes from 28 countries, while the first winter games took place in 1976 in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden. 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