Where is Stoke Mandeville

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Stoke Mandeville, a small village in the southeast of England, is where the first competitive sport for disabled athletes was organised by a German neurologist, Dr Ludwig Guttmann, who had set up a spinal injuries centre, which is now Europe’s largest spinal injuries institute.

Working with soldiers injured in World War II, Dr Guttmann had introduced them to sports as part of their rehabilitation programme. In 1948, when London hosted the Olympic Games, he held the first archery competition for wheelchair athletes, as part of the Stoke Mandeville Games, which he started organising every year. The annual games got international appeal from 1952 but it was only in 1960 that the first Paralympic Games were held in Rome.
The word Paralympic was coined by combining the Greek preposition “para,” meaning beside or alongside, and the word “Olympic.” The importance of Stoke Mandeville for the Paralympic Games was highlighted when the Paralympic flame was lit at a huge ceremony at Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire at the opening of the games in London on August 29.
“The torch relay is a significant event in the staging of every Paralympic Games. With London 2012, it has extra significance as it will start from Stoke Mandeville, the spiritual birthplace of the Paralympic movement back in 1948,” says Sir Philip Craven, head of the International Paralympic Committee.
Praising Dr Guttmann’s vision, Lord Seb Coe, the head of the London 2012 organising committee, welcomed the Paralympic Games to their spiritual home at the opening ceremony. “It was this vision that launched Ludwig Guttmann’s great venture, the Paralympic Games. Welcome home to this sporting competition. Welcome home to a movement that shows what sport is all about.” The Paralympic Games started being held in the same city as the Olympic Games from 1988 when the two events were held one after the other in Seoul, South Korea. After this, in 1989, the International Paralympic Committee was formed in Germany.