IWAS World Games

The International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports (IWAS) World Games (or IWAS World Games) are a multi-sport competition for athletes with a disability. They led to setting up the Paralympic Games. The competition has been formerly known as the World Wheelchair and Amputee Games, the World Wheelchair Games, the International Stoke Mandeville Games, the Stoke Mandeville Games, and in the 1960s and 1970s was often called the Wheelchair Olympics.

The first Games were in 1948. The neurologist Sir Ludwig Guttmann organized a sporting competition for World War II veterans with spinal cord injuries at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital  in Aylesbury on July 28th 1948, the same day as the Opening Ceremony of the 1948 Olympic Games in London.  In 1952, the Netherlands joined in the event. This was the first international sports competition for disabled people.

The Paralympic Games,which started in 1960 now include athletes from all disability groups.   The IWAS games are multi-sport events just for wheelchair athletes.

References

Category:Sports for the disabled