Sports for the disabled in Israel has a profound history of achievements and success. The Israel Sport Center for the Disabled in Ramat Gan has been the pioneer in the field of sport and rehabilitation.
Sports for the disabled was developed at the beginning of World War II in Stoke Mandeville, England, where Dr. Ludwig Guttmann, a German-Jewish refugee, revolutionized the treatment of the spinally injured. He decided that sport would play a key role in his patients' new lives.
In 1948 - Dr. Ludwig Guttmann founded the Stoke Mandeville Games for the Paralyzed. In 1960 these games were held in Rome, and became known as the first Paralympic Games - a moving moment when hundreds of handicapped sportsmen and women wheeled through Rome's huge Olympic Stadium, to compete in the same sports, using the same rules, as able-bodied athletes. The disabled Olympics now takes place every four years, after the regular Olympiad.
Sport for the disabled was developed in Israel for the I.D.F disabled war veterans who were hospitalized in Tel Hashomer Hospital during the War of Independence, and its development continued for victims of the polio epidemic in the 1950s. These two populations joined forces to raise awareness of the importance of sport in the rehabilitation of the disabled.
In 1968, The Israel Sport Center for the Disabled in Ramat Gan, hosted, for the first time, the Olympic Games for the Disabled . More than 1000 athletes participated in the event. Today, Israeli athletes compete locally and internationally.
