The Paralympics emerged as a series of rehabilitation activities for veterans

By a staff reporter: The Stoke Mandeville Games, also referred to as the Wheelchair Games, took place prior to the well-known Paralympic Games. Returned from the front lines of World War II in 1948, soldiers suffered crippling spinal cord damage.

To assist these war veterans in adjusting to their injuries, the British government ordered neurosurgeon Dr. Ludwig Guttman to establish a spinal injury center at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire. Soon after, Dr. Guttman achieved a remarkable discovery: sports had a significant role in the healing process.

Originally intended to aid troops in recovering from their wounds, a wheelchair tournament on the hospital premises quickly grew into a nationwide championship that attracted the attention of the Olympic Games committee and inspired people all over the world.

Amputee, cerebral palsy, visual impairment, spinal cord injury, intellectual disability, and les autres are the six categories of disability. To guarantee fair competition, each disability group has its own classification scheme. This categorization system groups athletes based on how their handicap affects their performance in a particular sport. It levels the playing field and encourages fair competition by enabling athletes with varying degrees of disability to participate against one another.