The Czech Paralympics Team could be defined as a group of athletes and their companions, who represent or have represented the Czech Republic in the Paralympics or Deaflympic games. This group includes also people participating in provisioning for Paralympics and deaflympic athletes, in preparation and execution of the Czech Republic’s participation to Paralympics and deaflympics, directly or indirectly.

The idea of paralympism started to develop worldwide in the middle of the 20th century. The International Coordination Committee of world organizations of handicapped athletes was founded in the eighties, as an equal counterpart of the Internal Olympic Committee. In 1992 it was renamed to International Paralympics Committee.The Czech Paralympics Team includes also the hearing disabled; the history of their international competitions goes back to 1924. Since then, sport events called International Silent Games have been held (currently Deaflympic games).

Historie

In 1948, Sir Ludwig Guttman held a race for veterans of World War Second with backbone injury in the rehabilitation institution of the English town of Stoke Mandeville. Four years later, Dutch athletes participated to these games, thus supporting establishment of the movement which we today call Paralympics.

The popularity of these games as well as participation of many countries led L. Guttmann to found an international sport organization for wheelchair bound people /y. 1957/. Furthermore, he wished to create a system of competitions for handicapped, which would be similar to the Olympic games. His idea materialized for the first time in 1960, two months after Olympics games in Rome were over. There were the first historical Paralympics Games. Since then, dr. Guttmann was the main initiator of all other Paralympics until he died in 1980.

Paralympics games

Paralympics Games are the top event for top athletes with various handicaps. The basic philosophy of the Paralympics movement is the fact that these world athletes possess abilities and experience equal to non-handicapped athletes and they must also subject themselves to strict qualifications and selection for national teams.

These are successes of our Paralympics athletes during the history of the independent
Czech Republic:

• The Czech Paralympics Team won 10 medals (2-7-1) in X summer Paralympics Games in Atlanta in 1996.
• The Czech Paralympics Team won 7 medals (3-3-1) in VII winter Paralympics Games in Nagano in 1998.
• The Czech Paralympics Team won 43 medals (15-15-13) in XI summer Paralympics Games in Sydney in 2000.
• In VIII Winter Paralympics Games in Salt Lake City in 2002, the Czech Paralympics Team won 5 medals (2-1-2)
• The Czech Paralympics Team won 31 medals (16-8-7) in XII summer Paralympics Games in Athens in 2004.
• In IX Winter Paralympics Games in Torino in 2006, the Czech Paralympics Team won 1 medal (0-1-0)
• The most successful athlete in the history of the Czech Republic in summer Paralympics games is spastic roman Musil (4-1-1)
• The most successful woman athlete in the history of the Czech Republic in winter Paralympics games is visually impaired Kateřina Teplá-Šromová with guides Pavel Teplý (1998) and Renáta Karamanová (2002), winning 4-2-0 medals.

Přehled Paralympijských her