In 1948, Sir Ludwig Guttmann organized a sports competition involving World War II veterans with a spinal cord injury in Stoke Mandeville, England. Four years later, competitors from Holland joined the games and the international movement, now known as the Paralympics, was born. Olympic style games for athletes with a disability were organized for the first time in Rome in 1960. In Toronto in 1976, other disability groups were added and the idea of merging together different disability groups for international sport competitions was born. In the same year, the first Paralympic Winter Games took place in Sweden.

	History of Paralympics
	Sports
	Medals
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Today, the Paralympics are elite sport events for athletes from six different disability groups. They emphasize, however, the participants' athletic achievements rather than their disability. The movement has grown dramatically since its first days. The number of athletes participating in Summer Paralympic Games has increased from 400 athletes in Rome in 1960 to 3195 in Atlanta in 1996. In Sydney, a record number of 122 countries, or 123 delegations including independent athletes from East Timor, participated at the Paralympics, making this the largest Games in Paralympic history.

The Paralympic Games have always been held in the same year as the Olympic Games. Since the Seoul Summer Games (1988) and the Albertville Winter Games (1992) they have also taken place at the same venues as the Olympics. On 19 June 2001 an agreement was signed between IOC and IPC securing this practice for the future. From the 2012 bid process onwards, the host city chosen to host the Olympic Games will be obliged to host the Paralympics as well.
The next Paralympic Winter Games will take place in Salt Lake City (2002), USA. In 2004, the Summer Games will be held in Athens, Greece. On June 19, 1999, Turin won the bid for organizing the 2006 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.