The first Paralympic Games were held in:

The first Paralympic Games were held in Rome, Italy, in September 1960, just after the Rome Summer Olympics. About 400 athletes from 23 countries took part, all of whom used wheelchairs.

Origin of the Paralympic movement:

The Paralympics grew out of the Stoke Mandeville Games, organised by Sir Ludwig Guttmann, a German-born British neurologist, at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital in England.

On 29 July 1948, the opening day of the London Olympics, Guttmann organised a competition in wheelchair archery for 16 injured servicemen and women with spinal cord injuries. This event is seen as the starting point of the Paralympic movement.

The games became international in 1952, when Dutch ex-servicemen joined.

The 1960 Rome Games were later recognised as the first Paralympics; they were originally called the 9th International Stoke Mandeville Games.

Key milestones:

• 1976: the first Winter Paralympics were held in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden; athletes with other disabilities (such as amputees and the visually impaired) were also included in the Summer Games.
• 1988 Seoul: the Paralympics were held at the same venues as the Olympics for the first time, a practice that continues.
• 1989: the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) was founded; its headquarters is in Bonn, Germany.
• The word "Paralympic" means "parallel" to the Olympics.
• The Paralympic symbol is the "Agitos" (three crescent shapes in red, blue and green), and the motto is "Spirit in Motion".

India and the Paralympics:

• India first took part in the 1968 Tel Aviv Paralympics.
• India's first Paralympic gold was won by Murlikant Petkar in swimming in 1972 (Heidelberg).
• India's best results came at Paris 2024, with 29 medals (7 gold), and at Tokyo 2020, with 19 medals (5 gold).

Why not the other options?

• ✗1948 is the year of the first Stoke Mandeville Games in England.
• ✗1952 is when the Stoke Mandeville Games became international.
• ✗1976 is the year of the first Winter Paralympics.