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Paralympic Games and Special Olympics
The second biggest sports event after the Olympic Games, with reference to the number of participant athletes and the countries they represent, are the Paralympic Games.  It is an institution independent from but directly associated with the Olympic Games. Besides, the name of the Games comes from the words "parallel" and "Olympics", thus expressing the relation between the two organizations. A relation that becomes even closer, seeing that the Paralympics, since the first organization in 1960, have been held in the same year, in the same city and approximately the same days with the Olympic Games, namely parallel to them. The Paralympics is the major sports meeting of high level for disabled athletes.
The first games for disabled people were organized in London in 1948 and concerned mainly the invalid soldiers and officers of World War II. The organizer of these games was Sir Ludwig Guttmann, a German neurosurgeon, who in 1939 took refuge in Great Britain and used sport for therapeutic purposes to patients with movement problems. These games, which took place on the runway of hospital helicopters and included contests with wheelchairs only, began on the day of the opening ceremony of the fourteenth Olympic Games. Over the following years, other similar games were held as well, in which participated war veterans from other European countries apart from Great Britain. These efforts soon developed into the organization of the first Paralympic Games, in Rome in 1960, in which participated 400 athletes from 23 countries, a few days after the end of the seventeenth Olympic Games. The programme of the games included six sports suitable for a category of athletes on wheelchairs. Thenceforward the Paralympic Games have been held at the same time with the Olympic Games and in almost all cases (in the first organizations and after 1988) in the same city. More precisely:
- 1964: Tokyo, 390 athletes from 22 nations
- 1968: Tel Aviv, 750 athletes, 29 nations
- 1972: Heidelberg, 1000 athletes, 44 nations
- 1976: Toronto, 1600 athletes, 42 nations
- 1980:Arnhem, 2,500 athletes, 42 nations
- 1984: New York, 1700 athletes, 41 nations
- 1988: Seoul, 3,053 athletes, 61 nations
- 1992: Barcelona, 3,020 athletes, 82 nations
- 1996: Atlanta, 3,195 athletes, 103 nations
The 1996 Paralympics were held ten days after the end of the Centenary Games and became the second biggest sports event worldwide. Almost 4,000 athletes from 127 nations took part in the Sydney Paralympics. They were divided into six competitive categories and competed in 19 sports. With regard to their constitution, the Paralympic Games were initially governed by some loosely associated international federations, which were formed into one body in 1982. Seven years later this body became the International Paralympic Society - IPC, having its own symbol and logotype: Mind, Body and Spirit.
In the late 1960s, more precisely in 1968, appeared a new sports institution, which was established in relation to the Olympic Games: the Special Olympics, an institution concerning people with mental problems. In these games, as opposed to the Paralympic Games, the emphasis is given to the value of participation rather than to high-level sport. This is apparent in the oath of the athletes: "Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt"É
The first organization of international games for people with mental problems took place in the USA, in Chicago, in 1968, with approximately 1000 participant athletes. The man who pioneered the organization of these games and the creation of an international federation was Eunice Kennedy Shriver. The Games were repeated in 1970 and in 1972, in Chicago and in Los Angeles respectively, in which participated mostly athletes from the USA and Canada. The fourth Special Olympics were held in 1975 in Michigan, in which participated 3,500 athletes from ten countries. Ever since they have been held every four years, in the year prior to the Olympic Games. All the organizations have been held in cities of the USA, whereas the next organization (2003) will be the first to be held in another city, namely Dublin, Ireland. In 1988 the IOC recognized the Special Olympics, without raising objections to the use of the word "Olympics". In the 1990s the spread of the institution was prodigious, something which is obvious by the entries in the last two organizations (1995, 1999) that exceeded 7,000 athletes coming from approximately 160 countries.
The programme of the Special Olympics includes 19 sports.
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