Chapter 2: Sir Ludwig Guttmann - Father of the Paralympics
How did the Paralympics begin? Competitive sport for athletes with a disability is a relatively new phenomenon. It is generally agreed that the Paralympic movement towards competitive sports for individuals with a disability began in 1948 in Stoke Mandeville, United Kingdom.
Sir Ludwig Guttmann, a neurosurgeon, began work at Stoke Mandeville Spinal Injuries Unit in 1944. Joan Scruton (later secretary general of the International Coordinating Committee or ICC) became his secretary and assistant. She recalls the story Sir Ludwig told her about his inspiration. "In the First World War he was a medical orderly; he wasn't old enough to go in as a soldier. He said a patient was brought in, a big, strong man with a spinal cord injury, and they put him at the end of the ward. They put screens around him, saying there would really not be a need to go near him to treat his sores, as he would be dead in a few months. Something in Sir Ludwig rebelled."
Dealing with limited resources, inexperienced staff, and this prevailing attitude that rehabilitation of patients with spinal cord injuries was impossible, Sir Ludwig looked for ways to inspire and integrate the ex-soldiers in his care back into society. Joan Scruton recalls that success did not come easily. "Some of these soldiers, or sailors, or airmen coming in from the battlefront were in terrible condition. Not only had they spinal cord injuries, but by the time they got to us they had terribly infected bedsores, kidney infection, and so forth."
As part of his innovative treatment program, Guttmann made work an everyday part of each patient's activities. He wanted his patients to resume normal life as quickly as possible. Given that most of his patients were young, formerly active individuals, sport was part of that normal life too.
Joan Scruton recalls, "One of the main treatments was sport, even when they were lying in bed. We had a quartermaster sergeant who was seconded from the army to do sport with the patients. When they were lying in bed he would throw a medicine ball to them and they would throw it back to get the strength in their arms."
Sir Ludwig realized that organized sports could work wonders in motivating patients to exercise, especially the young and formerly active war veterans he had in his care. Joan Scruton says, "Sport was of course critical to get their strength; their future depended on being able to lift themselves into the chair. The second point was psychological because when a patient came in, they stayed sometimes three or four years to get over their sores and kidney infections and to rehabilitate."
Joan Scruton remembers how the sergeant and a patient started the first team sport: wheelchair polo. "They got in wheelchairs, and they had shortened sticks, and a disk for the puck, and they went up and down an empty ward hitting this puck. It was played against the physiotherapists, and later against the local football clubs." After some players received minor injuries in the fierce competition, polo was replaced by basketball, just as furious a sport but with less risk of damage.
Since Sir Ludwig made sport mandatory, it soon formed an essential part of the program at Stoke Mandeville. Miss Scruton recalls, "They had to do a sport. It was part of the treatment. It was not a question of would you like to do archery; no, it was part of the treatment, like taking their medicine, or doing physiotherapy. And Sir Ludwig would make sure that they did it."
Archery competition led to the first Stoke Mandeville Games for the Paralysed, held on July 28, 1948, and involving 16 competitors. It was no accident that these games opened on the same day as the Olympics. Sir Ludwig wanted his games to have a larger forum. He envisioned international games: Olympics for athletes with disabilities. The Stoke Mandeville Games were held yearly after 1948, and became international in 1952 with the addition of a Dutch team of competitors. That same year the International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation, or ISMGF (later the International Stoke Mandeville Wheelchair Sports Federation, or ISMWSF) was created; it decided the games should be held in the country hosting the Olympics. And in 1960 in Rome, immediately after the Olympics, Sir Ludwig watched as 300 athletes entered the Olympic Stadium. From this has sprung the Paralympic Games, second in size only to the Olympics.
Instead of resting on his laurels, Sir Ludwig realized his work was just beginning. As president of the International Sports Organization for the Disabled (ISOD), founder of the British Sports Association for the Disabled, and world-renowned expert in his professional field, he worked tirelessly to improve the day-to-day lives of those with disabilities. Sir Ludwig Guttmann passed away in 1980, having seen the influence of his games touch thousands of people worldwide. His vision continues to inspire all those who strive for his dream: the full integration of those with disabilities into mainstream society.