Founder of the Paralympic Games
Dr Guttmann was director of the Stoke Mandeville hospital, the National Spinal Injuries Centre, and in 1948 organised games for 16 injured servicemen and women, wheelchair patients. The Games took place alongside the 1948 Olympic Games. The Stoke Mandeville Games continued and expanded, and when they were held in 1960 in Rome a few weeks after the 1960 Olympic Games became known as the Paralympic Games.
