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Still growing Paralympics world's second-largest sporting event
By David Harsanyi, CNNSI.com The Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games, the world's premier competition for disabled athletes, is one of the largest sporting events in the world. From their humble beginnings in London more than half a century ago, the Paralympic Games have become the fastest-growing movement in international sports, providing an elite competition for athletes with a functional disability. This year's games are expected to include 4,000 athletes from 125 countries competing in 18 sports. The origins of the Paralympic Games can be traced back to neurosurgeon Sir Ludwig Guttmann, the "Father of Disabled Sports." After immigrating to England in 1939 as a refugee from Nazi Germany, Guttmann began working with patients who had sustained spinal chord injuries. He observed that 85 percent of people with this type of injury died as a result. One way to prevent this, Guttmann argued, was to have his patients exercise and compete in sports. So, in 1948, Guttmann and the Stoke Mandeville Hospital, which specialized in the treatment of spinal injuries suffered by ex-servicemen, organized the International Wheelchair Games to run parallel with that year's London Olympic Games. Four years later, disabled competitors from Holland joined the games, and the International Paralympics movement was born. The program continued to grow through the years, and the International Coordination Committee on Sports for the Disabled was formed in 1982. The Committee has been responsible for governing the Paralympic Games since that time. The first official Paralympic Games were held in Rome in 1960, a few weeks after the Olympic Games took place there. The inaugural Paralympics were a great success, as 400 wheelchair athletes from 23 nations competed in the Games. Since 1960, the Olympics and Paralympics have shared cities five times: Tokyo (1964), Seoul (1988), Barcelona (1992), Atlanta (1996) and Sydney (2000). In 1976, the Paralympics continued its expansion, merging with different groups that organized their own international sport competitions for disabled athletes.. Then, in 1980, the first Paralympic Winter Games took place in Sweden. By 1990, at the Arnhem Paralympic Games in the Netherlands, 2,000 athletes -- representing 42 countries, including Australia -- competed. In fact, the success of Australia's Paralympic athletes in international competition led to the establishment of the Australian Paralympic Federation that same year. In 1996 in Atlanta, the Paralympics Games achieved a historic milestone when Malaysia became the 100th nation to participate in the Games. The Paralympics will mark their largest growth ever this year in Sydney. The Paralympic Organizing Committee has received a record number of entries, including submissions from 26 countries which did not compete in Atlanta: Barbados, Benin, Cambodia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guinea Republic, Iraq, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mongolia, Niger, Palestine, PNG, Philippines, Rwanda, Samoa, Sudan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Vanuatu and Vietnam will all send athletes to this year's Games. The first Paralympic Games in Rome involved 400 athletes from 23 countries. This year, the Australian Paralympic team, the largest assemblage ever to compete at the Games, will boast more than 400 athletes and team officials on its own. In total, more than 4,000 athletes from 123 countries are expected to compete across 18 sports in six disability categories. Now the world's second-largest sporting event (after the traditional Olympics),
the Paralympic Games have established that elite disabled athletic competition
can be both entertaining and highly
competitive.
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