The World Abilitysport Games are a parasports multi-sport event for athletes who use wheelchairs or are amputees. Organized by World Abilitysport, the Games are a successor to the original Stoke Mandeville Games founded in 1948 by Ludwig Guttmann, and specifically the International Stoke Mandeville Games—the first international sporting competition for athletes with disabilities which was held in 1952, itself an Olympic year, between British and Dutch athletes and which ultimately was the forerunner to the modern Paralympic Games.
Aylesbury is the county town of Buckinghamshire, South East England. It is home to the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery and the Waterside Theatre. It is located in central Buckinghamshire, midway between High Wycombe and Milton Keynes.
Stoke Mandeville is a village and civil parish in the Vale of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located three miles from Aylesbury and 3.4 miles (5.5 km) from the market town of Wendover. Although a separate civil parish, the village falls within the Aylesbury Urban Area. According to the Census Report the area of this parish is 1,460 acres (5.9 km2).
The Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital is a private hospital in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. It is a Grade II listed building.
Sir Ludwig Guttmann was a German-British neurologist who established the Stoke Mandeville Games, the sporting event for people with disabilities (PWD) that evolved in England into the Paralympic Games. A Jewish doctor who fled Nazi Germany just before the start of the Second World War, Guttmann was a founding father of organized physical activities for people with disabilities.
WheelPower is the national organisation for wheelchair sports in the United Kingdom, and aims to help people with disabilities improve their quality of life.
Stoke Mandeville Stadium is the National Centre for Disability Sport in England. It is sited alongside Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. Stoke Mandeville Stadium is owned by WheelPower, the national organisation for wheelchair sport.
Sir George Montario Bedbrook, OBE was an Australian medical doctor and surgeon, who was the driving force in creating the Australian Paralympic movement and the Commonwealth Paraplegic Games, and helped to found the FESPIC Games.
Eileen Mary Perrottet was an Australian physiotherapist, noted for her contributions to the Australian Paralympic Movement, a senior physiotherapist at Mount Wilga Rehabilitation Hospital in the Sydney suburb of Hornsby.
Kevin Francis Betts, OAM was a sports administrator known for his work in the Paralympic movement in Australia and his founding work related to wheelchair sports in New South Wales.
The Best of Men is a 2012 period drama television film, which dramatizes the pioneering work of Dr Ludwig Guttmann with paraplegic patients at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, which led to the foundation of the Paralympic Games. It stars Eddie Marsan and Rob Brydon, and aired on BBC Two.
In September 1943, the British government asked neurologist Ludwig Guttmann to establish the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire. When the centre opened in 1944, Guttmann was appointed its director and held the position until 1966. Sport was introduced as part of the total rehabilitation programme for patients at the centre, starting with darts, snooker, punchball, and skittles, followed by archery.
In late 2012 it emerged that Jimmy Savile, a British media personality who had died the previous year, had sexually abused hundreds of people throughout his life, mostly children but some as old as 75, and mostly female. He had been well known in the United Kingdom for his eccentric image and was generally respected for his charitable work, which associated him with the British monarchy and other individuals of personal power.
Gwen Buck BEM was a British Paralympic athlete who competed in several sporting disciplines. She won gold medals in table tennis, lawn bowls, and swimming, and entered several athletics events across four Paralympic Games.
Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust is an NHS trust which runs Wycombe Hospital, Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Amersham Hospital, Buckingham Community Hospital and Thame Community Hospital, in Buckinghamshire, England.
The Cerebral Palsy Games are a multi-sport competition for athletes with a disability, which under the former name of the International Stoke Mandeville Games were the forerunner of the Paralympic Games. The competition has been formerly known as the International Cerebral Palsy Games or the Stoke Mandeville Games. Since the 1990s the Games have been organized by Cerebral Palsy International Sports and Recreation Association (CPISRA), so they called also CPISRA World Games.
Charlene Stuart Meade was an Australian athlete who became the first Australian woman to participate in the Stoke Mandeville Games, the precursor to the Paralympic Games. She finished second amongst women in the archery event, and later competed in the 1959 edition in para-swimming, archery and javelin. At the 1974 games, she won a silver medal in table tennis. Todman later became active in dog sports.
Joan Scruton was an organizing member of the International Stoke Mandeville Games from 1952 to 1968, which became the Paralympic Games in 1960. Apart from the games, Scruton was secretary general at the International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation from 1975 to 1982. Scruton was named a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1975 and awarded the Paralympic Order in 1999.
Healthcare in Buckinghamshire was the responsibility for the Aylesbury Vale, Chiltern, and Milton Keynes. They managed the clinical commissioning groups until July 2022.
Paul Kennedy (1959–2016) was a clinical psychologist with expertise in spinal cord damage rehabilitation.
