The Paralympic
flame was lit at the spiritual home of disabled sport on Tuesday, signalling
the 24-hour countdown to the start of this year's Games.
Some
3,000 people, including former Paralympians and dignitaries such as London 2012
organising committee chief Sebastian Coe, watched as the flame took hold at
8.12 pm (1912GMT) at Stoke Mandeville Stadium in southern England.
It was
at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in 1948 that a German-Jewish neurologist, Ludwig
Guttmann, organised the first recognised sports events for people with
disabilities, 12 years before the inaugural Paralympics in Rome.
"It
is simply not possible to stand here and not recognise the momentous debt of
gratitude to him, his work, his drive and passion," Coe said of Guttmann,
who died in 1980.
"I really
hope that if he was standing here today he would be very proud to be able to
look on the eve of the Paralympic Games that it was that work, that drive and
that passion that created a games that are now the second-largest sporting
event in the world."
The
president of the International Paralympic Committee, Philip Craven, said
simply: "It all started here."
This
year's Paralympic flame was created from four 'national flames' of England,
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that were kindled on Britain's highest
peaks and brought to Stoke Mandeville in miner's lamps.
The
flames, transferred into four torches, were then placed simultaneously in a
cauldron, creating a single flame that will be taken 92 miles (148 kilometres)
overnight from the world-famous spinal injuries centre to the British capital.
A total
of 116 teams of five people will now carry the flame to the Olympic Stadium in
east London for Wednesday evening's opening ceremony.
Guttmann's
daughter, Eva Loeffler, said the Paralympics had developed beyond anyone's
expectations from modest roots with just 16 wheelchair athletes -- all of them
war veterans with spinal injuries -- in 1948.
"Everyone
here could not have dreamed that lighting a spark in the hearts, minds and
bodies of Paralympians would grow into the amazing spectacle we are about to
witness," the 79-year-old told the crowd.
"It's
so right and fitting that Stoke Mandeville, the birthplace of the Paralympics,
has been chosen as the starting line for the Paralympic torch relay for London
2012...
"We
have hope that the power of the Paralympic Games and the incredible Paralympic
athletes will inspire a generation of newly-disabled people to transform their
lives through the power of sport."
The
original Stoke Mandeville games were timed to coincide with the first post-war
Olympics in London the same year and became so popular they were repeated
annually.
The
first international event was held in 1952, when a team of Dutch veterans came
to compete.
Guttmann,
who fled Nazi Germany with his family, managed to convince organisers of the
1960 Rome Olympics to allow 400 wheelchair athletes from 23 countries to
compete in a 'parallel' event and the Paralympics were born.
This
year, a record 4,200 athletes from 166 countries, including reclusive North
Korea, will participate in 20 sports, with the 11-day event an unprecedented
near sell-out.
Guttmann's
daughter said her father would have been proud of how disabled sport had
developed, particularly with the London Olympics seeing its first
double-amputee competitor in South Africa's Oscar Pistorius.
Pistorius
-- dubbed the "Blade Runner" because he runs on carbon fibre
prosthetic limbs -- made the semi-final of the men's 400m and the final of the
4x400m relay, and is set to defend his Paralympic T44 100m, 200m and 400m
titles.
Source: MSN.Com
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