Lighting Ceremony

Stoke Mandeville, the birthplace of the Paralympic Games

To celebrate Stoke Mandeville’s place as the spiritual birthplace of the Paralympic Movement, the International Paralympic Committee will create the Paralympic Flame there for each Paralympic Games from Paris 2024 onwards. In 1944, Sir Ludwig Guttmann opened a spinal injuries centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital to care for World War II veterans with a spinal cord injury. He used sport as a tool to rehabilitate his patients with the aim of turning back them into taxpayers.

On 29 July 1948, the day the London 1948 Olympic Games opened, Dr Guttmann organised the first Stoke Mandeville Games, featuring 16 injured servicemen and women who took part in archery competition. The Stoke Mandeville Games later became the Paralympic Games which first took place in Rome, Italy, in 1960. Since then, they have taken place every four years.