On the evening of March 4, the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympic Games was held at the Beijing National Stadium. Paralympic athletes on the ice and snow race, let us write ice and snow dreams with them!
The Winter Paralympic Games, or Winter Paralympic Games for short, are a type of Winter Games in which athletes with disabilities participate. As of 2018, the Winter Paralympic Games have been held for 12 years. So, how did the Winter Paralympic Games originate? Today we will talk to you together.
In post-World War II Europe, in order to allow soldiers paralyzed by spinal cord damage in the war to recover as quickly as possible, during the 14th Summer Olympic Games in London in 1948, the British neurosurgeon Sir Ludwig Gerterman and some well-known people who were keen on the cause of the disabled organized a sports meeting for a group of wheelchair athletes, called the "Stoke Mandeville" Games. Four years later, the International "Stoke Mandeville" Games Federation was founded in the Uk, and the first International Paralympic Games were held that year, which was the predecessor of the "Paralympic Games". In 1960, the first Paralympic Games were held in Rome.
In the minds of people with disabilities, the meaning of the "Paralympic Games" is more than just competition. What it represents is the need for tens of millions of disabled people to be tolerated and treated fairly by society, and it is the driving force for hard work. The word Paralympic in the Paralympic Game is derived from the Greek preposition "para" (with... side by side), prefixed with the word "Olympic". The "Paralympic Spirit" embodies "equality, participation and sharing" and contains a will to strive for self-improvement and tenacious struggle.
After the end of the Second World War, winter sports for the disabled gradually developed due to the many wounded soldiers and ordinary people trying to re-engage in skiing activities.
Sepp Zwicknag is a pioneer of snow sports for disabled athletes, a skier from Austria. In 1942, his calf was maimed by a grenade, and he later invented a ski strap that allowed him to compete in alpine skiing competitions. He then created three-track skiing using crutches. The most direct impact of the equipment innovation was to enable the disabled to continue to drive on the snow, and 17 disabled people in Austria participated in the first modern ski competition in February 1948. The following year the first Austrian Three-Board Ski Championships were held in Badgastein, Austria. It can be said that from the late 1940s to the 1970s, the participation of people with disabilities in skiing was not news in Europe.
On February 21, 1976, the Winter Paralympic Games, which were more than 50 years after the Winter Olympics, were finally held in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden, with more than 250 visually impaired and physically disabled athletes from 14 countries and regions participating, with two events, alpine skiing and Nordic skiing, and athletes with different disabilities could participate in their own levels, and the prelude to the Winter Paralympic Games was opened.
Looking forward to the wonderful performance of Paralympic athletes in this Winter Paralympic Games, let us enjoy the beauty of competition, spiritual beauty and life brought by Paralympic sports.