Paralymic Games on their 25th year.
The International Paralymic Committee or IPC is celebrating their 25th anniversary! Here is the timeline of their growth and development:
- Mid 1940s According to historian Tip Thibout, while American rehabilitation hospitals in Framingham, Massachusetts and Birmingham, California, were seeing the benefits of developing the game for rehabilitative purposes for soldiers wounded during World War II, Guttman was doing the same with the British relative of the game called netball.
- 1948 Wheelchair basketball was one of the original Paralympic sports contested in Rome and was first played at the predecessor to the Paralympics, the International Stoke Mandeville Games (ISMG) which were initiated by Dr Ludwig Guttmann at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Ayelsbury, Buckinghamshire, Great Britain.
- 1960 Paralympic Games began in Rome.
- 1989 Bonn founded the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).
- 2000 In his book 'Wheelchairs Can Jump', co-written with Stan Labanowich, Thiboutot notes that Craven wrote in an IWBF newsletter that, "wheelchair basketball did not exist in Europe in the late 1940s."
While the origins have been argued, the fact that wheelchair basketball for men has been a central part of every summer Paralympic Games, with women participating since 1968, and will be going forward.
The United Nations Secretary General went with sports metaphors in his message.
"The United Nations congratulates the IPC on its 25th anniversary. You win at promoting sport to unite people. You score big at celebrating diversity. And you are gold medal champion of human rights. I warmly applaud the officials, athletes and others driving the Paralympic Movement," he said.
Craven also read out a letter from another basketball player, President Obama, part of which read: "The Paralympic Games - which are now among the largest sporting events in the world - serve as a powerful reminder of the inherent dignity of every individual and of what is possible with determination and grit."
(Source: 2014 FIBA World Cup Official Website)
