On 29 July 1948, sixteen injured servicemen and women took part in a wheelchair archery competition at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire. The event became known as the first Stoke Mandeville Games.

It was held on the day the London Olympic Games opened at Wembley. The connection was deliberate. Dr Ludwig Guttmann wanted competitive sport for people with spinal injuries to be treated seriously rather than as a minor hospital activity.

Guttmann was a German Jewish neurologist who had left Nazi Germany and settled in Britain. During the Second World War, he was appointed to lead the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville.

People with serious spinal injuries had often been expected to remain in bed and dependent on long-term care. Complications caused by inactivity meant that many died within months or years of their injuries.

Guttmann introduced a more active system of treatment. Patients were expected to build strength, learn practical skills and exercise regularly. Sport became part of the programme because it required movement, concentration and competition.

The first Games involved two teams. Patients from Stoke Mandeville competed against residents of the Star and Garter Home in Richmond. Fourteen men and two women took part.

Archery was the only event. It could be practised from a wheelchair and depended on control of the upper body rather than use of the legs. It also allowed competitors to be judged by ordinary sporting measures of accuracy and score.

The competition was repeated in 1949. It grew as other hospitals and rehabilitation centres became involved. In 1952, a team from the Netherlands took part, making the Stoke Mandeville Games an international event.

More sports were added as the competition expanded. The emphasis also moved beyond hospital treatment. Participants were increasingly recognised as athletes competing in an organised sporting event.

In 1960, several hundred athletes from more than twenty countries travelled to Rome for an international competition held after the Olympic Games. This event is generally recognised as the first Paralympic Games.

The Stoke Mandeville competition began with sixteen archers on hospital grounds. Its immediate purpose was rehabilitation through sport. The international movement developed from that work.