The IPC's mission is to enable athletes with a disability to achieve sporting excellence and to inspire the world. Whereas other international sports organisations for athletes with a disability are limited either to one disability group or to one specific sport, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) - as an umbrella organisation - represents all sports and disabilities. The national sports organisations that created the IPC believe that the future of disability sport lies in bringing together athletes with different handicaps to hold joint competitions.
HISTORY
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Adam Pretty/
Allsport
The history of the Paralympic movement is relatively new and goes back to 1948, when Sir Ludwig Guttmann introduced the first Stoke Mandeville Games for World War II veterans with spinal cord-related injuries. Later, other disability groups also established their international sports organisations, which arranged various competitions.
As time went by, multi-disability competitions developed, which later became the Paralympic Games. The Paralympics quickly grew and became an important international sport event. The need to govern the Games more efficiently and to speak with one voice resulted in the foundation of the ICC, the "International Coordination Committee of World Sports Organisations for the Disabled" in 1982. The ICC was to be replaced by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), founded in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1989.
Since 1999, the IPC has its World Headquarters in Bonn, Germany.
PARALYMPIC GAMES
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Adam Pretty/
Allsport
The Paralympic Games have always been held in the same year as the Olympic Games. Since the Seoul Summer Games (1988) and the Albertville Winter Games (1992), they have also taken place at the same venues as the Olympic Games. On 19 June 2001, an agreement was signed between the International Olympic Committee and the IPC aiming to secure and protect the organisation of the Paralympic Games. The agreement reaffirmed that the Paralympic Games, from 2008 on, will always take place shortly after the Olympic Games, using the same sports venues and facilities. From the 2012 bid process onwards, the host city chosen to host the Olympic Games will be obliged to host the Paralympics as well.
