Paraplegic athletes are practising prior to travelling to England to take part at games at Stoke Mandeville. Charlie Witherspoon talks to some of the competitors; Hugh Gregory, Philip McMahon and John Hughes. Mrs Izzard is the secretary of the Paraplegic team and she’s competing in loads of events. 

The International Stoke Mandeville Games were a preclude to the Paralympics. Competitors from all over the world met to contest a vast array of sports. The Games were originally held in 1948 by neurologist Sir Ludwig Guttmann, who organized a sporting competition involving World War II veterans with spinal cord injuries at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital rehabilitation facility in Aylesbury, England, taking place concurrently with the first post-war Summer Olympics in London.  

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