The first official Summer Paralympic Games were held in Rome in 1960.
The event followed the 1958 decision to stage an international competition for athletes with disabilities alongside the 1960 Olympic Games. It brought together about 400 athletes from 23 countries and included eight sports, such as athletics, swimming, wheelchair fencing and wheelchair basketball.
The Rome Games are widely regarded as the first Paralympic Games, although earlier international sporting events for disabled competitors had taken place at Stoke Mandeville in England. Those earlier competitions established the movement’s foundation, particularly through events for wheelchair athletes.
A common mix-up is calling the 1948 Stoke Mandeville competition the first Paralympics. It was an important precursor, but Rome 1960 was the first official Summer Paralympic Games. The Olympic and Paralympic Games were not always held in the same host city or under the same organizational arrangements in later decades.